Remembering Amity
by The Green Pilgrim
Summary: Sam assumes her life will fall back into place when she returns to Amity Park for the first time in three years. This assumption, what with Danny mysteriously hating her, Vlad scheming, and the world probably facing destruction, is entirely wrong.
1. Incidents at the Academy

Author's Note: Hello, hello, hello! Welcome to yet another attempt on my part to keep up with an on-going fanfiction… this is, however, my first attempt at an on-going Danny Phantom fanfiction… so maybe that means something? Maybe it doesn't?

As to the premise of this fic… amnesia is such a deliciously ambiguous ailment when it comes to fiction, isn't it? Believe me when I say I have never known anyone or known of anyone suffering from it to the extent most often portrayed, but I'm sure it must be possible or else so many people wouldn't assume it is. Well, whether it is or it isn't, this story is in fact _fiction _and I therefore claim right to take "amnesia" and make it as bizarre or drastic as any writer might, disregarding reality.

I don't know why I'm going on so, I usually _hate _lengthy author's notes. I bet you've skipped over this already. For those of you who haven't, let's get on with the story, shall we? And let's hope that I can continue to get on with it until it's finished. Wish me luck!

Disclaimer: I do not own it, Sam I Am!

Obligatory meaningful song lyrics:

_Hey where did it go?  
Everything we fought for, and everything it meant  
Maybe we were just naive, but I still believe  
There are only a few things that really belong to me  
Who I am, who I was, and who I want to be_

_-The Bouncing Souls_

Remembering Amity

Chapter One: Incidents at the Academy

Dr. Lin kept a watchful eye over her class. Loafers, wanna-bes, and troublemakers the lot of them, she thought, sniffing to herself. Some of the other teachers at Stoneborough Academy went easy on them because their parents were obviously wealthy or influential enough to dump their offspring into such a high-end boarding school. Not Dr. Lin, though. She was an English teacher, and it was her job to make sure the students _learned_. If they had to fail a few tests to realize that she was expecting true effort from each and every one of them then so be it.

At the moment, half of the students sitting in rows before her were probably doing just that.

Would it kill any of them, she wondered, to actually _study_ a few nights a week?

English was the third language Dr. Lin had ever learned, but it was by far her favourite. The complexities of it, and of course the seemingly boundless amount of _words _never ceased to amaze her. And so it was difficult for her to understand how the teenagers before her, some of whom in this class were turning eighteen and legally considered adults in this country, could not appreciate that.

They slurred their words, she thought with narrowed eyes, they rarely went through a sentence without utilizing 'like' or 'uh' or all those horrible little slang words they had, the most incorrigible of which was certainly 'LOL'. Did Dickens say 'LOL'? Did Hemingway? The Bard himself, who indeed crafted so many words for his own use? Of course not.

And, she noted, as a good looking, Indian boy in the first row's eyes strayed towards the test paper on the desk beside him, their apathy was not only geared toward language. Oh no, it was a crucial attitude towards everything in their lives. Each child before her was so very, very lucky to have been born in a country where every child got an education, and where all of their parents had been able to buy them an extremely good one. With their colored hair and designer clothes… they'd all been granted the very best in life, and it irked her to no end to see them squandering it, listlessly passing their days in storms of gossip and promise-breaking and all the drama that went with so many teenagers living under one roof together for so long.

She glanced out the window, eyes glazing slightly as she remembered a different time, when she taught at a small, charitable private college that was running its funds into the ground. Her English classes were so-so, but at that point she had also taught a few courses on Medieval and Early Modern Studies. _There _she had found kindred spirits, students with a true curiosity and passion. It was a joy to share knowledge with others seeking it solely for their own satisfaction.

But, and this was the one thing she was forced to agree upon with her current pupils: when it came right down to it, money ruled all matters. When keeping her job at the college meant not having enough to live on she was forced to take a new position. This one, in fact.

She turned back to her class. No one had finished yet, although she had been previously worried that she'd made the test a bit too easy. Her glare settled on one student in particular, sitting near the back of the room, her eyes focused out the window as Dr. Lin's own had been not moments before. But Dr. Lin wasn't taking a test, and it annoyed her to see this girl distracted from it so easily.

"You will _not _be given extra time for this," she informed the class sharply. "I would stop dreaming and start working, Samantha."

The girl looked startled and briefly puzzled. For a moment her eyes met with Dr. Lin's. Though half hidden beneath the choppy row of bangs that topped off Samantha's long, neatly-straightened hair, Dr. Lin could still appreciate the rather bizarre shade of her eyes. Violet. Fairly uncommon.

As soon as the girl's head turned down to look towards her paper, Dr. Lin leaned a little heavily back on her desk. _What a strange feeling_… she mused. For a moment, as their eyes locked, it had been like both she and Samantha had truly understood each other. As if that girl too had been staring out the window without seeing the view, but rather an old life that she longed so much to return to even though she knew it was impossible.

That was foolish of course. Such detail couldn't be conveyed through just a few seconds of eye-contact, right? And then there was considering Samantha herself, who had been one of the most air-assuming and apathetic students of them all since she first arrived in her sophomore year. Chiding herself for being so unsettled, and wondering again if this indeed should be the year of her retirement, Dr. Lin took up her vigil once more.

-SA-

The blue eyes staring into her own were flashing with anger. So bright… it almost reminded her of someone else…

"Samantha Manson, TELL ME it's not true!"

Trinda kind of had long arms, Samantha noticed vaguely. With her hands on her hips the girl's designer sweater, which had previously fallen loosely off of her shoulders, bunched way up to her collar bone.

"It's not true," she replied, deadpan.

But Trinda, nearing hysterics over what was clearly a very serious matter, was not in the mood. "Andrew asked you out," she said accusingly.

Samantha shrugged. She was perched on her bed in the same room she and Trinda had shared for the past two years. Her sophomore year at the academy she'd had a mousy sort of girl as a roommate. Linda was her name, coincidentally. What ever happened to her, anyway? Samantha found herself wondering.

"_Andrew Parikh _asked you out after the game on Saturday," Trinda clarified tossing her head in a way that gave her blown-out red hair a waterfall effect.

Still Samantha said nothing. Instead she looked down at her feet. A strange feeling was coming over her. A lump in her throat, as if she was going to cry…

"And you said no!" Trinda shrieked.

But no, she _wasn't _going to cry. That was the strange part. Her closest friend was pissed off, yelling at her, shouldn't she be getting emotional? Shouldn't she cry, and then Trinda would cry, and the two would make up again? Like always?

She looked up finally, her fists clenching at her sides. Before she even realized she had done it she was on her feet and squaring her shoulders.

"So what if I did?" she announced. The words were strange in her throat. She was, by nature, not particularly argumentative. It was hard to make friends at the academy, and an unapproachable disposition would do no good, after all. Or so her mother had told her, three years ago…

Trinda was also startled, but unlike Samantha she wasn't mysteriously pleased.

"What do you mean, 'so what'?" she asked defensively. "Andrew is like… sex on legs! And you know he's probably going to be valedictorian. He's perfect!"

"I don't care if he's perfect or not," Samantha retorted. Her heart was beating in her throat like a war drum, a strange adrenaline threatening to overcome her at any second. What was happening?

"Just what the hell are you thinking, Samantha? Don't you know there are girls who would _kill _just to have Andrew give them a passing glance, but he wants to go out with _you_? Date him, and you'll be the envy of the whole school! Why are you wasting such a—"

"Because I don't think that's what a relationship is about!" Samantha growled so fiercely that Trinda cut her speech short with a small yelp. "So what if he's good looking? And so what if he's going to be valedictorian? What does being cute or being good at math and English have to do with a person's feelings? Do you really think some one like Andrew likes me for who I am? Don't you think he's just looking for, as you put it, 'sex on legs'??"

Trinda, rather stunned, sat down quickly on her own bed. Samantha took a few steps closer to her, so angry now she was shaking.

"Do you think that if I dated Andrew I'd be _happy_? That I want all the girls in school to pretend to be friends with me to get closer to him, and hate me just because some hot guy decided 'Samantha' was this week's flavor? Andrew's smart, but only in the way that he knows he needs good grades, a nice car, and a pretty but brainless girlfriend for anyone to respect a heartless Ken-doll like him. Well I'm _not _brainless, and I'm not playing any part in it!"

Trinda closed her mouth quickly, belatedly realizing she had left it open. She'd been friends with Samantha for three years, and as far as she knew, knew her better than anyone else. She was also extremely jealous of her because Samantha was thin, pretty, and had sleek, black hair that fell straight to her mid-back without having to blow it out or straighten it, unlike her own naturally curly locks. And she got better grades. And boys like Andrew Parikh asked her out.

But in those three years Samantha had never acted this way. She got upset when a teacher chewed her out, or when she discovered a friend talking behind her back, but never so… _angry_.

No, it wasn't just the anger that was startling. It was the passion behind it. Did she really care about it _that _much…?

Tears slid down Trinda's cheeks. After all, her best friend had just completely flipped a lid at her.

"I'm sorry," she squeaked.

But whatever had awakened so suddenly inside Samantha had suppressed itself once more. "Oh my God," she said, looking startled. "I can't believe I just said all that to you."

And then she was crying too. She sat on Trinda's bed beside her, and they cried together. Eventually, they hugged, reconciled once more, and began making plans to go out in the evening like nothing had happened. Andrew Parikh was not brought up again.

In the back of Trinda's mind, she knew that since Samantha had never actually gone out with Andrew, he wasn't technically her ex. And that made him still Available to some one like her.

In the back of Samantha's mind, she was wondering what the hell had just happened to her, and why, for some reason, she wanted it to happen again.

-SA-

Samantha was angry and not paying attention to where she was going. She'd had what seemed like the hundredth fight with Trinda since… well, she wasn't really sure since what. Since whenever it was she started fighting with Trinda so often. And it had been over something so stupid, a pair of _shoes _of all things. Her roommate had just ordered them from online, and they _were _pretty cute if you liked that sort of thing, but they were _leather. _Yuck.

It was too late to be wandering around the school like this. Definitely after-hours, though she'd first stormed out of her dorm room before curfew ended. Probably she should go back before she was caught. Maybe Trinda had gone to bed by now anyway.

Just as she had decided to head for the nearest staircase and go _up_stairs, an open doorway she hadn't noticed before beckoned her to go _down _instead. It was a weird desire, Samantha knew, to want to go down into the cellars. No students ever did, not even on dares, and the sign on the door clearly read "STAFF ONLY."

But why was the usually locked door open anyway? It seemed like more than chance that she should be passing by here at just the right moment, when some custodian or teacher had forgotten to lock the door behind them. What harm could there be in taking just a quick look around? She needed more time to cool off anyway.

And so Samantha Manson, heedless of what harm crawling around in dirty, centuries-old cellars could do to her hair and clothes and designer shoes, did indeed go down that night. What she found there was rather more than she'd bargained for.

-SA-

The tapping noise was just enough to rouse Trinda from her dream. She was not sorry. She couldn't remember the dream-events, but she knew that she had been very cold and wet and miserable, and was relieved to find herself once more curled warmly beneath her comforter. Outside the mid-April air was cold, but rainless, and a new moon left the room entirely dark.

More tapping.

Even though she now felt completely awake, it seemed too much to ask to get up and see to the door where the chilly air would reach her bare arms.

The tapping grew more insistent.

"Go away," she grumbled, "People are sleeping in here, God!"

There was a pause. Trinda assumed the unwelcome intruder had given up and was momentarily proud of herself.

"It's Shannon," a testy voice hissed suddenly from beyond the door. "Let me in before some one comes!"

Trinda grumbled again, this time wordlessly, and dragged herself from the blankets. The air was just as chill as she suspected, and gooseflesh rose on her skin. The room was completely dark, but familiarity aided by a narrow beam of light flashing back and forth at floor level lead her to the door.

Shannon, lit eerily by the cell phone she was using as a flash light, looked very irate indeed. She wore large, uselessly fluffy slippers and her thin, blonde hair was done up in three lop-sided buns at odd angles on her head (dripping with scrunch spray, Trinda knew. Shannon's hair, unlike her own, was not naturally curly but she could never figure out why anyone would go out of their way to pretend it was). The combined image was highly amusing, but… you just don't laugh at some one with _that _kind of expression on their face.

"We need to talk," she said, entering the room and flicking the lights on. Trinda winced as her pupils were forced to adjust. If it affected Shannon at all she was clearly too pissed off to show it.

"You're gonna wake Saman—" Trinda started angrily, but in the newly lit room, it was glaringly apparent that Samantha was not in her bed, nor had she apparently even disturbed it at all.

"Huh. Where's the roomie?" Shannon asked. Her tone was over-sweet, but it was clear by her smirk that she had not expected Samantha to be there.

"Just like, _what_ is your deal, Shannon?" Trinda asked, crossing her arms. Inside her mind was buzzing. _Where _was Samantha? They'd snuck out after hours before. They'd even gone to the midnight showing of _Elizabethtown_ and managed to sneak back in at three in morning without getting caught. But they were always _together_, or they at least told each other where they were going. This wasn't like her…

Shannon crossed smartly towards Sam's bed and sat on it as if further proving its vacancy. "You don't know, am I right?" she said. "And here I thought you two told each other like everything."

Trinda felt her hands clenching. She wanted to dispute Shannon's (albeit true) statement, but knew if she said anything at all her voice would shake. It always did when she was about to cry.

"Look," Shannon said, appearing suddenly tired, "I don't mean to get _you _all upset Trinda, I don't have anything against you or anything."

Trinda remained all silence and a pointed glare.

"It's Samantha," Shannon clarified. "I wanna know what's up with her."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Trinda managed, her voice only squeaking slightly on the last word.

"Stop with the denial!" Shannon scowled. "She's been acting… _weird_. She's stopped eating, like that girl needs to lose weight, GOD, she won't really talk to any of us anymore… And whenever we TRY she always looks scared or annoyed. She keeps going off on her own like… like she's _better_ than us or something… And Andrew is—"

"So that's your problem with Samantha," Trinda realized. "The more she pulls away, the more Andrew goes after her. You're jealous."

"And you just admitted Samantha's pulling away," Shannon announced triumphantly. Trinda cursed herself inwardly. Shannon was her friend, but if there was anyone in the world who could make her feel about as tall as an ant it was her.

"We've all done shit to get boys to like us…" Shannon continued, "But I can't _stand _Miss I-get-picked-up-for-summer-break-in-my-parent's-private-jet walking around like she's better than everybody else!" She turned herself and flopped back on the bed to punctuate this point. Trinda winced as the girl's sticky hair hit Samantha's pillow. Her wince couldn't compete with Shannon's own, however, as it scrunched up her entire face with half pain and half fury.

"Oow," she moaned, "What the hell…?" Reaching beneath the pillow, her hand reemerged clasped over the spine of a thick book. The cover was black leather, or at least imitation leather, and was doodled on in silver sharpie. All Trinda could make out from across the room were a series of spider webs drawn in one corner.

Shannon held it up carefully, looking for all the world as if she'd discovered the lost city of Atlantis.

"Oh my God…" she breathed, flipping through the pages. "She keeps a _diary_."

"Put that back!" Trinda cried. Shannon _shh_ed her quickly, glancing hurriedly at the door before returning her gaze to the prize in her hands.

"It's okay," Shannon insisted, turning back to the first page. "I know where Samantha went. She's in the cellars. She's done it before and she won't be back for like hours."

"The cellars?" Trinda repeated, blanching. Students weren't allowed in the cellars. No one went into the cellars of the Academy unless they absolutely _had _to. They were rather extensive, containing huge storage areas and the boiler room among other things. The lights always flickered, no matter how many times the bulbs were changed, so staff and custodians had to use flash lights and lanterns to work down there.

And, of course, they were said to be haunted.

Shannon nodded carelessly, "God knows what she's doing down there! But look, since we know she won't be back for a while, why don't we read just a few pages? It wouldn't hurt, right? And you know you want to know what's going on with her."

Trinda bit her lip. She didn't feel like crying anymore. She was actually kind of mad at Samantha for daring such an adventure without her, and for not telling her what was wrong and why she was being so weird lately, and for snubbing Andrew Parikh and making Shannon so jealous, and a million other things that all seemed to be piling up against her at this of all moments, when Trinda was truly being tested as a worthy friend or not…

"Okay," she agreed stiffly, "We'll read a few pages. JUST a few, though, and then we're putting it back."

Shannon smiled. When she wanted to she could have a very pretty smile. Right now, it was not pretty at all. She patted the bed beside her, and Trinda sank down on it wearily. Then the two put their heads together, and began reading…

-SA-

_March 1, 2009_

_Dr. Lin is always saying, "If you want to understand something, try writing it down." I know it's just hardcore English-teacher stuff, but I decided to give this a try… a diary, I mean. Already I feel weird. God knows I don't usually show my true feelings._

_Does anybody, I wonder?_

_I think I'm going to have a hard time with this. I don't understand it to begin with, so how am I supposed to be able to put it to proper words? Lately I've just felt different. It's so hard to explain. It's like… there's me, and I know who I am and what I like, but then it's like there's this other me, who's completely different and likes different things. _

_Does that mean I'm schizophrenic or something?_

_It wasn't so profound at first. It was just kind of this nagging feeling that I wasn't quite being myself. Things I said just started to sound fake to me, or wrong, or mean, or other things I wouldn't normally have thought or even noticed…_

_I think the one of the first time this happened was when Trinda, Wes, and I were at the football game (us vs. Hawks, last of the season). We weren't paying attention to the game or anything, duh, but occasionally watching the girlz do their cheering thing and all the guys getting sweaty. At first I was having a good time, and then suddenly I just felt really gross being there. Like "Look at all those beasts jumping at each other and beating each other, all to throw some stupid ball around." I know it's stupid, I mean no one really _cares _about football, as long as our school wins, but the way I thought it… It's like it wasn't _me _thinking it, but some one else. But at the same time, more like me than I've ever been._

_I'm not making any sense. Maybe this wasn't a good idea. _

_Right now I feel normal, and I am going to BED._

-SA-

"Oh my god, she thinks she's going crazy…" Shannon said, sounding of all things _amazed_.

Trinda was worrying her lip again, staring at the familiar handwriting on the page. Of course it was Samantha's, and there's no reason she would have it under her pillow unless it was hers, but she couldn't believe her closest friend could have thought things like. That she was, as Shannon put it, 'going crazy'. Couldn't you tell if some one was crazy or not? And what did she mean when she said there was "another her" inside her?

"Hey!" she snapped, as Shannon flicked ahead a few pages.

"What? You're saying you don't want to keep going?" she asked slyly, already knowing the answer.

Trinda leaned her head in once more in a resigned way, hating herself.

-SA-

_March 20, 2009_

_I can't even stand to eat in the dining hall any more, around all the vicious and ignorant slobs gnawing away greedily at their burgers and tacos like it's nothing_. _I can't believe I ever joined them. Every time I try again I keep picturing those poor cows and pigs and chickens, all lined up for the slaughter. It really doesn't make sense for humans to eat other animals like that. We're not carnivores, and there are plenty of ways to get equal nutritional supplement. _

_For example, I had this spectacular tofu dog in town today from a little place on the corner of—_

-SA-

"What the heck is she _talking _about?" Shannon wondered, exasperated.

"That explains why she hasn't been eating much lately…" Trinda said, half to herself. In a way she was relieved that Samantha didn't have some gross eating disorder as she'd been beginning to suspect. But she was also deeply unsettled by the tone of the passage. It was much more collected and confident than the first one they'd read. As if Samantha were accepting whatever weird changes she was going through….

-SA-

_March 21, 2009_

_Black box stage and no way out  
__I'm a puppet dangling from broken strings  
__Wisps of former happiness tangle them, and tease at my tears  
__I wonder when they will leave me to my  
__Mournful solitude  
__Splintered by the puppeteer's cackle  
__It is my soul's own darkness laughing  
__I'm forever forced to dance_

_Fought with Trinda today. Again. I can't seem to help it anymore. I don't mean to hurt her feelings. Out of everybody here, she's the only one I can really stand to be around anymore. But she can still be so damn annoying_. _We used to get along so well, but now I feel like I can't connect with her at all. I mean, I don't tell her anything I write in here. She wouldn't understand. They all think I'm some perfect little rich girl around here, and I know I'm screwed if I act any other way. _

-SA-

Tears were dripping down Trinda's face. _She thinks I'm _annoying…

"_It is my soul's own darkness laughing_?" Shannon read, looking perturbed. "What _is _that? Since when does Samantha write poetry?"

"I-I don't know…" Trinda murmured.

-SA-

_April 1, 2009_

_Maybe Dr. Lin was right. I think I finally understand what's happening. It's so weird to think it, or even dream of thinking it, because they said it would never, ever happen. _

_But it all makes sense! This past month I feel like I've become so much better at reading people, and when I went back and thought about them, I realized what they were truly doing. How all their 'good intentions' and 'nudging me in the right direction' were really designed to get me to be the kind of daughter they'd wanted all along. They said they were helping me become myself again._

_Lately I've been wondering…would I really NEED help to become myself again? Myself is just… myself. It's not something you can teach to a person like algebra, it's something you discover on your own. I didn't know that then, I mean, I was so scared and confused, and I thought I could trust my parents, of all people._

_What I mean to say by all this, is that I think the reason I've been, well, changing, the reason I 'suddenly' became a vegetarian and lost my taste for gossip, and can't stand my friends any more… It's because I'm beginning to REMEMBER!_

_I hate thinking about it, but it's true that my first memories are of waking up in the hospital, confused, alone. Afraid. Some nurse with a smoking problem telling me my name and age because I didn't know them. For three years, I've been building new memories, starting with that one._

_But now that all this has happened, I think that might all change. I might remember what happened before the accident. What I liked and I what I didn't like, my old town, my neighbors, my old classmates… and maybe even my friends? Mom and Dad said I didn't have any, but was I so horrible a person?_

_Now that I've finally met myself (that's a weird way to put it, but totally true) I don't think I'm TOO unlikable. I must have hung out with some one now and then. _

_Staring, hollow, glowing eyes  
__His fingers lace with mine,  
__Cold like death_

_And that. That keeps happening to. Did I like poetry before it happened? This is so exciting!!_

-SA-

Samantha's clogs made awkward 'squelching' noises as she walked along the mildew-y, cement corridor. The light from her cell phone revealed that the ceiling was hidden above a mass of pipes heading in all directions, most of which were in some way leaking. She did not want to think what it was that might be dripping from them, only pressed forward. This was her first exploration of this portion of the cellars, and she was excited to see where it led. Serious looking metal doors appeared on either side of her as she walked, but she wanted to start at the very end and work her way back.

She kept on, even though the brief circle of light her phone provided showed no end or turn-offs forthcoming.

A bare light bulb, hung above (probably dangerous beneath the leaky pipes, she mused) flickered on and off a few times. She had not bothered to turn on the lights herself when she'd come down, so she wondered if some one else had taken the initiative (and therefore might discover her at any moment) or if it was just… whatever it was that caused the lights to malfunction.

Strange how she was hoping for the second option, even though just thinking about it made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

It took her a few moments to realize that there were footsteps coming from somewhere behind her. She froze, disbelieving. What was some one doing in the cellars at this time of night? Usually even the staff didn't come down here after dark, let alone nigh on two in the morning.

She kept walking, wondering if whoever it was had noticed her yet. They must have, they would see her cell phone. Maybe she should turn the light off before…

But wait… wouldn't the other person… _also _need a light…?

She froze, heart pounding in her chest, ringing in her ears and accompanying the pipes' consistent dripping. The air was cold and the floor fell soggy beneath the soles of her shoes.

The footsteps were not nearly as far off now. Definitely coming closer, _towards her_… For a brief moment she considered convincing herself that it was just some pipes rattling, or the echoes of some one walking on the floor above.

Except no one walking around upstairs would make the same horrible _squelching _sound her own steps had.

_Stay calm_, she ordered herself, and promptly turned off her phone-light.

Instantly she was plunged into total darkness. It didn't alarm her further, mostly because she knew the 'enemy' had now lost his advantage over her, but also because… it was sort of comfortable. Like she'd spent a lot of time just sitting around in the dark before, thinking…

But of course she hadn't done anything of the sort. Well, at least not _recently, _she reminded herself, thinking of her latest revelation.

With a sudden spurt of courage, she continued on down the hall. One hand groped until it found the wall, and she slid her fingers along it as she walked, grateful for the guide despite the fact that it was kind of… slimy.

Ew.

The pace of the footsteps behind her (which did NOT, to her surprise as a teen well-rounded in popular movies, match her own strides at all) continued steadily, apparently unconcerned with the fact that they no longer had a visual to follow.

_Unless it can see in the dark_, she thought, and then wondered when the presumed 'he' she had imagined was following her had become an 'it'.

Her hand warned her of the hallway's finish a second before she would have crashed into the dead-end. _How anti-climactic_, she thought. _Oh, and now I'm trapped. _

Feeling around helplessly, she discovered that it was not a dead-end after all, but merely a doorway leading somewhere else. She found the handle, slightly wet like everything else in this part of the cellars, and knew, not sure quite how, that just as she was turning it whatever had pursued her this far had finally caught up.

Shaking fingers turned the handle. This door was her only escape route.

It was locked.

"Well, here we are," said a calm voice from behind her. The lights flickered once, then off again, but even so there was a strange soft glow lighting the area. Sam could now see that not only was the door handle apparently locked, but there was also a huge, rusty padlock holding it shut at both the top and bottom. She'd never be able to make it through without the key.

Or, apparently, the help of a ghost.

"Let me get that for you," the ghost said with an impish smile. Before Samantha could protest, icy fingers had interlaced with her own. She felt her whole body acquire a strange, weightless feeling, and then her feet left the ground as the ghost pulled her through the door.

-SA-

"Wes! _Wes!_" Trinda was shaking the sleeping girl perhaps just a _bit _too violently, but she herself was trembling from excitement and not a little fear. Shannon looked non-plussed, a careful expression she'd been keeping up since they'd first read Samantha's most recent diary entry.

"It's too bright…" Wes muttered unhappily, pulling her quilt over her head. Trinda and Shannon were two of the few people who knew that 'Wes' was actually short for 'Westenra', a name that they agreed was weird and kind of ugly and certainly not a very fitting girl's name. Wes had tiredly explained to them again and again that it was some _literary _thing her eccentric aunt had insisted on in exchange for full payment of Wes's entire education, which her parents had agreed to on the spot.

"Wake up, this is important!" Trinda assured her, cruelly pulling the covers away. Wes immediately curled up in response, her arms hugging her knees.

"Go away," she muttered. "It's _cold_."

"We found Samantha Manson's diary," Shannon said suddenly, a hard edge in her voice. The book in question was hugged beneath her arms as if she was afraid to let it go.

_That _got Wes's attention. She sat up immediately, blinking in the bright light but unfazed by it as her eyes immediately fell on the book. A knowing smile graced her lips.

"Anything… interesting?" she wondered. Her eyes darted to the alarm clock on her bed-stand and her expression grew unpleasant once more. "There'd better be, it's two in the frickin' morning."

Shannon smiled, sitting down on the bed beside the other two girls. "Like you wouldn't _believe_," she assured her. Taking care to be slow for effect, she began turning the pages, one at a time, until she reached the latest entry. It had apparently been written that day, sometime after dinner but before curfew since Trinda had returned to their room at eleven on the dot. She cleared her throat lengthily, causing the other girls to grow impatient, before beginning to read in a whiny and not-very-accurate imitation of Samantha:

"_April 3, 2009_

_No memories yet, but I can feel them. I know they're there, just waiting for me to find them. Maybe if I look at something the right way, or sense a familiar smell, hear a familiar voice… I know before when my parents asked the doctors they said that triggers like these wouldn't do any good, but it's different now. Before my mind was a blank slate, like I'd never had any memories to begin with. Now they're bubbling at the surface, just waiting to break free…_

_I know my best bet is in the cellars. For almost three years I've gone to this school, and it never even occurred to me to go down there. I mean, they're huge, dark, scary, gross, and not to mention it's against the rules. But something compelled me just to the entrance that first time… now I can't get enough of them. Every time I'm down there, in the dark, with that little bit of nagging fear that comes with not knowing what's in front of you or behind you, I get this sense of familiarity_. _If I keep trying, I'll remember something, I KNOW it!_

_I can't wait until night time when I can go again. I usually wait until Trinda's asleep, but I don't think I can stand it tonight. I really think this might be the night!_

_Oh man, my heart is racing! It's been so long since I've had any certainty in my life, ever since that stupid accident it's like everyone's been living it for me. My parents, my friends… Everything's different now though. When I go down into those cellars tonight, I really think I'll find myself again." _

Shannon ended, having added perhaps just a few too many dramatic pauses. Trinda looked uncomfortable and Wes… Wes had that gleam her eyes sometimes took on when her sharp mind was figuring something out, or more accurately, figuring out how a situation could be turned to her advantage.

"Samantha… has _amnesia_?" she wondered. She sounded amazed and disarmingly pleased.

"That's what we thought too," Trinda affirmed, but clearly she was the only one taking the situation very seriously.

"I know, right?" Shannon said, "I can't believe she never told us! Or that nobody found out or anything. But then Trinda and I were thinking, we _know _Samantha, but has she ever really said anything about her life back home…?"

Wes grew thoughtful, before shaking her head. "No, not really. She lives with her parents in some big mansion or whatever, right?"

"Yes," Trinda confirmed, "In somewhere called Amity… Amity something… Amityville sounds familiar…"

"Oh my God, like that movie?" Wes asked, looking mildly horrified.

"It's not Amity _Park_, is it?" The three girls were startled to find the voice had come from the other side of the room.

"What do _you _know, Ashley?" Wes asked, rolling her eyes. Ashley was a petite girl with dark skin and hair kept in corn rows that reached her waist. Most of the girls at the Academy agreed that hanging out with her was more like 'putting up with her' since she tended to be arrogant and something of a wet blanket.

Trinda, however, faced her seriously. "What _do_ you know, Ashley?" she breathed.

"I thought everybody knew," the other girl began haughtily, obviously somewhat miffed at having been woken in the middle of the night for what she considered useless gossip. " Amity Park is the most haunted town in the country."

"You're nuts," Shannon declared icily. Ashley only shrugged, indicating Shannon's opinion made no difference to her.

Surprisingly, Wes said, "No, she's right." Wes was the most apt of them all to have it out with Ashley, despite the fact that the two had been best friends since they were twelve. "I saw it on the news a couple of times. They were interviewing some ghost hunters… a man and some woman, what were their names…?"

"Who _cares_?" Shannon wondered, glaring between the two of them, "Ghost hunting? This is stupid. Trinda didn't even _say _that's where Samantha is from."

The three looked at Trinda expectantly, and she grew immediately nervous. "Um," she began, chewing her lip, "I, uh, I don't really remember. That might have been it."

The other three groaned, and Wes prepared to whack her with a pillow.

"Hey!" she cried defensively, "You said it yourself, she doesn't talk about it! I mean when did she tell me that, like sophomore year?"

"I don't know about you guys, but I don't think it really makes a difference," Wes grumbled. "Can we get back to the fact that Samantha apparently like lost all her memories in some accident and has been hiding it from us this whole time?"

"That's not the point!" Trinda argued. "Didn't you hear what she wrote? She's been, like, _remembering_ stuff. That's why she's been acting so strangely! It's not strange at all it's just like… how she used to be…"

"And she thinks she'll find out more in the cellars," Shannon recalled, sounding suddenly uneasy.

"Ridiculous," Ashley said with a wrinkled nose.

Before any of them could comment in return, the lights shut off, effectively leaving them in total darkness. Thoughts of power failures and circuit breakers fled their minds and were replaced with cold, reasonless terror.

One terrified and continuous scream echoed through the halls of Stoneborough Academy.

To be continued…

Post A/N: HAH. It's not often you'll find THAT at the end of anything I write! I'm sorry if anyone is bored with all the talking and backround info and OCs... I hope I've at least gotten you all curious and you'll give me a chance to make things more interesting.

NEXT TIME: Sam's gotta save some one. Hopefully she's not too rusty in the hero department!


	2. The Haunted Cellars

Author's Note: Hi there, so glad you could make it! Here we are with chapter two which, I'm sorry to say (in case any Action Fans! are reading this), does not have much action. An over-load of dialogue and plot development should do for now, right? It's a bit shorter too. Wow, this is such a downer. Uhh…

Have fun!

Obligatory meaningful song lyrics:

_I knew a girl and her name was Judy   
She used to do things I thought were rude  
But I never said anything to her face,  
'Cuz my friends, I thought she'd kick my arse all over the place._

_--The Pipettes _(Hey, it _did _inspire the name of a character in this chapter.)

Remembering Amity

Chapter 2: The Haunted Cellars

It took several moments for Samantha to realize that she was the one screaming. The sound had seemed strangely far away to her at first, like the last thing she'd hear of a dream before waking. Now that she was fully aware of it the sound stretched out into the darkness, which was somehow more absolute than it had been ever before.

"Ssssh! Shut up, shut up, shut up!" the ghost (it couldn't be anything else) was whispering at her violently. It had let her go at this point and had disappeared, or seemed to anyway, though Samantha did not suppose for a minute that just because it wasn't visible meant it wasn't there. She did stop screaming, however, to catch her breath and try to make sense of the situation. Her throat hurt. She did not scream again when he reappeared, his whole figure casting a faint green glow around them.

Though she couldn't have known it, he was fairly normal looking as far as ghosts go: humanoid, in the shape of a sort of-handsome teenaged boy down to peculiarly normal details like his spiked hair, the stud ring in his left ear lobe, and the Stoneborough Academy uniform. But his skin was alarmingly green, and his spiked hair a fierce white, and he was _glowing_. That… was not normal.

"Please, don't scream anymore!" he tried again, growing more and more desperate. "You sound like you're having a nightmare!"

Samantha, bewildered, informed him, "I _am _having a nightmare!" She felt another scream building in the back of her throat, and took a breath…

Immediately he rounded on her. In a motion faster than Samantha could keep track of the ghost had pinned both arms to her sides with one of his and wrapped one hand firmly over her mouth. His touch was so cold Samantha was chilled through the sleeves of her sweater, and thought her lips might turn blue if he held on any longer.

The ghost sighed in relief when she did not attempt to scream again, and didn't notice how his captive's eyes had become more angry than fearful in a matter of seconds.

"Look here, girl," he said in a patronizing way that was odd for some one with such a young voice, "I'm going to let you go but you are _not _going to scream again because… because I am a very powerful ghost who can cause much bodily harm to you!"

Something like a sigh passed through Samantha's lips and the ghost felt her nod. Gently, he released her from his grasp, backing away but not far enough that he couldn't grab her easily should she decide to go back on her apparent agreement.

When Samantha looked at him again she was surprised to see that he'd undergone a few changes. His short spiky hair was now longer, a straight layer of bangs sweeping over one eye. The school uniform had been replaced with jeans and a t-shirt, and he had more earrings now. This was not, however, surprising enough to stop her from letting him have it.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!?" she demanded, pushing all the arrogance her popularity and considerable wealth had granted her over the past few years into that one sentence. Her eyes blazed in the greenish light the ghost emitted, and he backed away further. Briefly a fine green mist enveloped him, and when it dissipated he had bizarrely taken on the appearance of a scruffy green kitten.

"Kidnapping you," he answered in a small, fearful voice.

Samantha wasn't sure what surprised her more: the ghost's most recent transformation, that she was talking to a ghost at all, or that all she could seem to feel about the whole thing was indignation.

"Well I don't plan on _staying _kidnapped," she snapped at him, "So let me out of here right now or I'll find a way out myself!"

At this the ghost smiled, an eerily menacing expression on his would-be innocent feline face, and the lights snapped on more certainly than Sam had ever seen them in the cellars, as if every lamp and light bulb in the school had been focused on this one room. She blinked in the sudden brightness, but looked around curiously once her eyes had adjusted. The room the ghost had brought her to was… empty. Unrealistically empty. It was small, probably about eight foot square, with a tall ceiling. The pale walls were not wet or grimy, and as far as she could tell there was not even a single cobweb. She could also see, quite plainly, that the only way in or out was through the door which she'd been pulled through—the one that was most certainly still pad-locked from the outside.

"An old storage closet," the ghost informed her with a shrug, "No one ever comes here. It has been my home for the past fifty-seven years."

"Nice décor," Samantha commented dryly, unsure why she hadn't started screaming again.

At that the ghost (who had returned to his original form at some point while she was inspecting the room) gave her a hard stare, before a smile crept over his lips. "I knew it was you," he said with certainty.

"Knew _what _was me?" Samantha asked impatiently. "You don't want to marry me or anything, do you?" _Where did _that _question come from? _she wondered to herself.

"You are a very interesting human girl," the ghost assured her, "But you are still a _human _girl." He was apparently trying very hard to keep his tone from being too distasteful, but the effort was lost on Samantha. Before she could make an angry retort, however, the ghost continued, "They call me the Dream Seer. And the reason I am called this, as you may guess, is because I can see dreams. I have been watching your dreams for quite a while, Sam."

She wrinkled her nose at the ugly nickname, but despite the feeling that she felt her privacy had been seriously invaded, she couldn't help but grow curious. It had been a long time since she'd been able to remember having dreamt.

"Were they… interesting?" she guessed, holding her breath.

"Extremely," the ghost assured her. "And fortunately it is also within my abilities to show you just how interesting. It is within my power to not only _see _your dreams, but _become _them."

The strange greenish mist appeared again, and this time she was not as surprised by the transformation. When the ghost emerged again he was still in the form of a good-looking teenaged boy with white hair, albeit a different person entirely. Samantha felt chills wrack her entire body. That face, and those eyes… those desperately green eyes, glowing at her fiercely through lids narrowed with determination… Somehow, she remembered it.

"This figure," the ghost informed her in a chillingly familiar voice, "is the subject of your dreams quite often."

-SA-

"So let me get this straight," Samantha began carefully after a few healthy sips of her Pina Colada. "Anything that anyone's dreaming of… you can create?"

"Precisely," the ghost said with a rather impish expression. He had returned to the form Samantha had first seen him in: the boy in the school uniform. He seemed to prefer it, though he drew no attention to the fact. She vaguely wondered if that's what he really looked like. Sensing another question from his would-be captive, he asked her "And is there anything you desire? I assure you I could almost certainly find it amidst the dreams occurring over our very heads."

Un-embarrassed by her curiosity, Samantha requested eagerly, "Somewhere to sit down, if you don't mind. If I'm going to be stuck in this closet with you I'd at least like to be comfortable."

"Naturally," the Dream Seer replied. His expression did not change, but the green mist appeared once more, surrounding Samantha. When it disappeared she was surprised to find herself sitting on a plush love-seat sofa, the covering of which was pale blue with… bunnies on it?

"Who on Earth was dreaming about this?" she gasped and suppressed a shudder at how _cute _the little hopping caricatures were.

The ghost shrugged. "I can not say. I don't know who is having what dream unless they are dreaming of themselves. This person is not, but I can tell whoever he is _is _on the football team, if that gives you any amusement."

Samantha did laugh at that, but sobered upon realizing that she was in fact sitting on a comfortable couch and sipping on a refreshing drink pulled out of other people's _dreams_, and had not even considered for a moment the possibility that she was dreaming herself. "You _do_ seem to be a very powerful ghost," she complimented, honestly awed, "But why go through all this trouble for some one like me?"

He reached up to nervously fiddle with his earring, a habit that seemed too human for a ghost but he didn't seem to notice he was doing it. "Well that's just it, I guess," he replied, "I'm _not _all that powerful. Mind if I sit down?"

She scooted over to one side of the couch, and he gratefully sat down on the other. There was no change in the cushions, though they seemed to be supporting his weight. They remained oddly un-squashed, as if he wasn't actually there.

"All of this may seem rather grand to a _human _girl," he began, and once again she noted the distasteful emphasis on the word 'human', "But it is rather mundane by ghost standards. And I'll admit that I was originally a rather weak and uninteresting ghost, but at this point the limits to my powers are due to the fact that fifty-seven years ago I was cursed to _haunting_."

"Limits?" Samantha wondered, "And what do you mean cursed? I thought ghosts were supposed to haunt things."

He grew agitated. "Well yes, in the literal sense of the word. But for me it means I am stuck _here_ at Stoneborough. As long as I must haunt this place I can _only _see the dreams of anyone in the school, and I can therefore only conjure things being dreamt up by people when they are in this school. It puts a serious limit on my abilities in the daytime, and—"

Without warning the couch disappeared beneath them. Samantha cried out—her bottom had hit the cement floor rather hard and she scraped her hand trying to catch herself. She'd also dropped her Pina Colada, causing the decorative glass to shatter, but that too disappeared a few moments later.

"Ah," the Dream Seer explained dejectedly. "It seems not very many people are dreaming now. Probably thanks to all the racket you made before."

Samantha ignored the jab and asked him, "If you've been imprisoned for so long, why did you wait all this time to talk to me? Why not just find me when I first came here three years ago. Didn't I dream of… that halfa… then too?"

"I told you I can see dreams, but not who is having them. Only if they dream of themselves. It was only recently that you began dreaming of yourself, Sam."

She nodded. "I guess that makes sense. It was only recently that I sort of found myself."

"You _have _been dreaming of the halfa, haven't you?" he asked her, raising an eyebrow and for the first time looking as if he was doubting himself.

"That's the boy you showed me before?" she asked, feeling her breath catch in her throat. She hoped very much the Dream Seer wouldn't take that form again. She _wanted _to remember, anything and everything from her life before she'd been sent away to the Academy. But the emotions she'd felt when the ghost had become that boy… it was too much. She needed to start small.

She did her very best to quell the part of her that wanted, _yes, _YES, _needed _to see that boy again. It was a stalemate.

Growing increasingly confused, the ghost said, "You don't seem to understand… in your dreams you are on very intimate terms with the halfa. I thought you were his friend, if such a creature could be said to have friends."

"What do you mean, 'such a creature'?" Samantha demanded angrily, as if it was habitual for her to be so defensive about the boy. "What _is_ a halfa?"

"A halfa is what it is," said the Dream Seer, "Half ghost, half human. Probably the most powerful supernatural being in either world, and _this_ one in particular. But you… you don't know him, do you?" He did not seem confused anymore, but so horribly disappointed that Samantha felt she should at least _try _to help him. And there was also that small part of her she'd tried to suppress… the more they talked about the halfa, the more this part won out.

"No," she replied, "No, that's the strangest part. I _do _know him... Show him to me again."

-SA-

Breathless and exhilarated, Samantha ran down the corridor in the cellars faster than was probably safe on the wet cement. She felt the damp whatever-it-was splashing up around her legs, getting her socks wet, but she didn't care. The Dream Seer was allowing the lights to flicker more-or-less steadily again, and her passage back to the entrance was clear.

She was _free_, for one thing, and that was as good a cause as any to be thrilled. She didn't know anything about ghosts (as far as she knew) but she could imagine that if one captured you for the purpose of extracting a favor, which it turned out you could not provide, chances were it was not going to be very happy with you. And true, the Dream Seer had not been very happy at all. It seemed a shame that for three years he had been certain that finally _some one _had come to the school who might have access to the "Ghost Zone" (whatever that was): some one who could set him free.

"I'm sorry," she'd told him, awkwardly. She had to keep herself from promising him that somehow, someday, she _would _set him free. She felt sorry for him, but it would do nobody any good to promise something in all probability she could never achieve.

He seemed to sense her intentions, and though still disappointed, was moderately grateful. "You know," he said, "If you want to see the halfa in person, you should go to Amity Park. That's its territory."

Samantha paused before going up the stairs that would lead her back into the main part of the school. She was sweaty and grimy but it didn't matter. Amity Park was where her parents' home was. If that's where the halfa lived (or, whatever) then that _proved _that she remembered him somehow. She felt she knew him now, almost everything about him, and what she didn't know she was aching to find out.

More than anything she wanted to know his name.

-SA-

Classes went on as usual the next day, to everyone's chagrin. Particularly the teachers', who found themselves plagued with questions they simply couldn't answer.

"The matter is being investigated, but I can assure you that no one was hurt and nothing was damaged," Dr. Lin told her students rather forcefully for the third time.

"Where's Samantha Manson?" Trinda, who had barely seemed capable of sitting still since class began anyway, stood up and demanded. She sounded for all the world as if Dr. Lin had done something to her friend.

"She's _fine_," was all Dr. Lin would say. She could hardly believe what a ruckus this ordeal was creating in her normally silent classroom. All around her students were leaning heads together to murmur their fears and theories. All over one scream, which could have come from anyone for any reason. She tuned into their conversations with practiced ears and was only mildly surprised to find that most students believed Samantha had been viciously murdered in the night and the school was covering it up to avoid getting sued. She wondered why they couldn't utilize such imagination when given creative writing assignments.

"Samantha Manson is fine," she told them again in her very best no-nonsense tone. It had been a long time since she'd been angry enough to want to lose control and yell at some one in Mandarin—her first language. (Italian was usually her first choice for being angry with some one: it just gave an extra _oomph _to the words.) But this whole situation was really beginning to push her buttons, especially since for all she knew Samantha _had _been viciously murdered in the middle of the night.

-SA-

Trinda was a nervous wreck. She'd barely slept at all the night before, only the four or so hours before Shannon had woken her. After the lights had gone out and that horrible scream… no one had wanted to go back to bed. For a while the four girls had remained camped out in Wes and Ashley's room, too frightened to say anything beyond feeble attempts to make light of situation—all in whispers—that eventually died away as bleak uncertainty took over.

The headmaster and a few other staff members coming by with flashlights to tell everyone that everything was all right (but that all students should please remain in their dorms until further notice) was less than reassuring.

She was walking back to class, having excused herself to go to the restroom (where she splashed her face with cold water, re-applied her make-up, and spent the better part of twenty minutes leaning against the wall, unsure if she really wanted to go back at all), when a hand fell heavily on her shoulder from behind. She was wound up so tight she was prepared to scream quite loudly herself.

"Trinda, shh! It's me!" Samantha whispered hurriedly.

"Samantha?" Trinda breathed, and then threw her arms around her friend, barely noticing her disheveled state. "Oh my God, you have no idea how worried I was! Everyone's saying you were like, _killed _or something! And that scream last night, was that really you? Are you okay?"

"I'm _fine_," Samantha assured her, sounding bizarrely like Dr. Lin for a moment. "But look, I just wanted to tell you… I'm leaving."

"Leaving?" Trinda repeated blankly. "Are you going back to our room?"

"No… Trinda, I mean _really _leaving. I'm leaving Stoneborough Academy. Dropping out."

"Dropping out?" the phrase seemed foreign and awkward coming from Trinda's lips. "What are you talking about? You don't just 'drop out' of the Academy that's like… it's so _public school_." She wrinkled her nose.

Samantha sighed and took her friend gently by the shoulders, looking directly into her eyes. "I know. But I have to. Please try to understand… this makes more sense to me then anything else ever has. I have to go to Amity Park."

Trinda felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, recalling what Ashley had told them the night before. "This is because you're remembering stuff, isn't it?"

Samantha was completely surprised by that, though not upset. "You _know_?"

Blushing, Trinda reached into her purse and pulled out the black-bound diary with the spider webs doodled on it. "Shannon's idea," she rushed to defend herself. "But it _did _explain a lot… I'm sorry. I took it back so she couldn't do anything dumb to it." She held it out before her like a peace offering, cringing as she waited for Samantha to chew her out. But Samantha only smiled and nudged it back in Trinda's direction.

"Keep it," she said. "You can figure out a lot just by writing it down."

"Okay," Trinda said uncertainly. She put the book back in her purse; fairly certain she would never use it but somehow glad to have it all the same. A short silence stretched between them, suddenly awkward. Trinda hadn't felt awkward around Samantha since they'd first met, they'd become good friends so fast. But that was another time, before she discovered how complicated everything was. The girl in front of her was not the same Samantha she had been friends with. She was taking control of her life in a way that Trinda never could, and could never want to.

"When are you leaving?" she asked.

"As soon as possible," Samantha said, glancing around nervously. "I already told the headmaster of my intention. I'm seventeen, it's legal. I just need to get out of here before my parents find out. I'll be gone before tonight."

"Oh," said Trinda, a little too stunned to say much else beyond, "Well, I guess… I guess good luck getting away. I mean, and uh, finding yourself…"

"Thanks," Samantha said. They did not hug again. Eventually Samantha turned to go, back to the dorm that had been her home for three years to shower, pack a small bag, and call ahead for a train ticket. Her parents were on a semi-permanent vacation in Aruba last she'd heard, and would probably be difficult to get a hold of. As soon as they found out what she'd done they would no doubt close her credit account, but for now she had time to get what she needed. Time enough to get to Amity Park.

Trinda watched her go, uncertain just what she was feeling. Only a small part of her nagged with curiosity about what had happened in the cellars that night to change everything so suddenly. After all, the answer was already written in Samantha's diary...

"_It's been so long since I've had any certainty in my life, ever since that stupid accident it's like everyone's been living it for me. My parents, my friends… Everything's different now though. When I go down into those cellars tonight, I really think I'll find myself again."_

-SA-

"Sam… Sam, wake up. Sam!"

_Sam!_

Samantha sat bolt upright, too quickly for some one sleeping in an uncomfortable train seat with their neck at an odd angle for three hours. She winced, massaging her collar bone, and blearily tried to recollect where she was, and more importantly, why she was awake when she was so damn _tired_.

"Sam," a voice addressed her, sounding exasperated.

She shivered. The voice was different now. She could have sworn it was the Dream Seer calling after her so desperately. Or had it been that other ghost, the halfa? She forcefully stopped her bleary musings in order to ascertain just who was, in reality, trying to get her attention. She was surprised to see a girl two seats over in the otherwise empty train compartment. She seemed to be a few years older, but it was hard to tell under all that make-up. The girl sported a raggedy brown skirt that brushed the tops of her heavy black combat boots when she was sitting, and a black tank top with a huge smiley face on it (beneath which were cheerfully printed the words "FUCK YOU"). Her hair was washed-out purple, and Samantha didn't think it was possible for one person to have so many piercings.

"You know me?" she wondered, recalling somehow that the girl's name was Judy.

Judy snorted, "You told me your name before falling asleep." She muttered something under her breath that sounded mysteriously like 'airhead' before adding, "You asked me to wake you up when we were near Wayward Station."

"Oh," Samantha said, then "Ooh," as she finally remembered her brief conversation with the girl before she'd dropped off, exhausted. 'That's right," she said, mostly to herself, "I have to change lines there."

Judy, who seemed as if she would normally sport an attitude of acute indifference to anyone else, must have seen something in Samantha that piqued her curiosity. She asked, "Where are you headed?"

Samantha's gaze drifted to the window. It was too dark to see much of anything except the occasional streetlamps in the distance or a well-lit building, all of which went whizzing by at a speed that, increment by increment, was decreasing toward the Wayward train station.

"Amity Park," she told Judy, almost as if she were assuring herself of the fact too.

"Damn," Judy replied. She sounded impressed. "What's some one like you going to a place like Amity Park for?"

_Good question_, Samantha thought to herself wryly, but out loud she said, "I'm going home."

To be continued…

Post A/N: Phew! Now we're getting somewhere! Drop me a review if you will, so I know you're listening! (Super thanks to cariadiorarua, xX-Silver-and-cold-Xx, NixedFreedom, kitain9, KHFREAK14, kpfan72491, and bluename.)

NEXT TIME: Sam runs into a ghost from her past… who, in her past, was _not _a ghost!


	3. Ghost of a Friend

Author's Note: Hey all! Welcome back, and sorry for the delay. I would say "I hope this makes up for it!" but I doubt it will. And you'll see why in a moment. Have fun!

Obligatory meaningful song lyrics:

_I rise from the grave  
When the dead start to walk  
And I grab Zombie Dave  
And say "it's time to ROCK"  
We zombies are hungry and we're gonna stalk  
The robots are coming our way! _

--_The Flaming Tsunamis_

(There are no zombies OR robots in this chapter. Sorry to get your hopes up.)

Remembering Amity

Chapter 3: Ghost of a Friend

As Samantha stood on the front steps of the almost-familiar house, her thoughts lay mainly on taking a shower and brushing her teeth. She felt drowsy and rumpled from the night's train ride, and had that unwashed feeling that always comes from sleeping in your clothes. Yesterday she'd chosen to wear a pair of dark jeans and a plain lavender sweater, trying to be inconspicuous, and was now a little annoyed because cashmere was not supposed to be wrinkled so. She felt around in her duffle bag and pulled out the unfamiliar key: one that hadn't been used since her parents had first given it to her three years ago in case of some sort of absolute emergency. They were _so _paranoid.

Her heart skipped a beat when the key did not fit into the lock. For a moment she panicked, visions of her indeed paranoid parents getting the locks changed without bothering to tell her, and now she would be lost in this city, by herself, with absolutely nowhere to go…

She laughed softly, realizing she'd merely been putting the key in upside down. With an expert eye roll she slid it home and turned the decorative handle. The door creaked as it pushed painfully open, like it hadn't been used in months. Considering how much time her parents actually spent there, this was probably the case.

It was eerily silent when she stepped into the large home, not to mention dark. There were cobwebs on the light switch she found next to the door, but the entire foyer was flooded with light when she flicked it on. Trust her parents to pay electrical bills on a house they barely visited just because they could.

It was strange being in the house again. She'd spent a whole two days there after coming home from the hospital after the accident, camped out one of the large chairs in the basement, wrapped in blankets and watching movies her mother assured her were her favorites although she couldn't remember any of them (and hadn't particularly liked any of them either). The basement was cavernous, as was much of the rest of the house. It was deceptive that way, looking rather ordinary on the outside. Samantha had never liked it there, and even now she felt uncomfortable.

"This is my house," she said out loud, trying to make it feel real. She still held the door key in her hand but felt like an intruder all the same.

She found the master bedroom easily enough. At the top of the stairs she saw that all the doors had been left open except those at the very end of the hall: French doors hung with dusty velvet drapes. It was dark and lonely in the overlarge room she found behind them, entirely empty except for a dauntingly huge canopy bed (covered in white dust covers like those downstairs) and two similarly cloaked arm chairs next to a distinctly cold looking fireplace.

Samantha hadn't thought people actually had fireplaces in their bedroom anymore. It was so… Jane Austen. Or _Pirates of the Caribbean_. There had been lots of fireplaces back at the Academy, of course, but that's because the building was so old. Thinking of the Academy, Samantha was momentarily overcome by a wave of feeling. She wasn't sure if she was homesick for her school, or for the feeling that she wasn't a stranger in this house.

The connecting bathroom was also impractically large, twice the size of Samantha's old dorm room. The focal point was the bath at the center of the room: entirely round and made of neutral toned tiles, raised up from the floor by three encircling steps. A metal ring suspended from the ceiling supported a navy blue shower curtain that could be pulled all the way around the tub.

Perhaps it would have been easier to just use the shower in the corner, but the bath tub looked far too inviting. It was even worth it, she decided, to have to run the water once (her parents luckily kept up with the water bills as well) to clear all the dust out.

As she settled down in the steamy water (laced with bubbled bath, just because she didn't see why she shouldn't indulge a little after her rough night on the train) when it was finally ready. She had drawn the large circular curtain—it was too awkward taking a bath out in the open like that—and decided her time might be best spent planning her next move.

Here she was, Amity Park, allegedly the most haunted city in the country. She hadn't seen any ghosts yet (the idea of having to keep on the lookout for them still seemed rather ludicrous to her, even after the time she spent with the Dream Seer), but the grey, overcast sky outside had carried an alarming sort of greenish tint that in another state would have signified a tornado. She wasn't sure if what it _did _signify was any less dangerous.

The warm water was making her sleepy, and for a moment she forgot she was supposed to be planning. She'd folded up a towel she'd found in one of the cabinets and placed it beneath her head, leaning back and enjoying the first bath she'd taken in at least a year (it was hard enough having time to _shower_ when sharing a bathroom with seven other girls). The thick curtain around her kept all the steam from escaping and she breathed in, not caring that she was drifting off to sleep, barely noticing that as she did, she began to remember…

Against all odds, she remembered Mr. Lancer first.

She remembered his crisp shirts and overlarge gut and gleaming bald head and "_Pride and Prejudice!_" and just about everything else about her former teacher. The jump from there was Casper High—dimly she could picture its halls, a classroom or two. Public school. Strange how just yesterday she thought she'd never even been in one.

She half-consciously tried to picture the campus, the surrounding area. She shuddered as she recalled a fast food restaurant she must have frequented—to think all the meat products they must sell there, slathered in God knew how much grease and—

Her body was still safely immersed in the warm, soapy water, but she could feel the temperature change on her face and neck. The room had suddenly gone several degrees colder. She froze, hardly daring to breathe. Normally this would not be something to worry about. After living in a building as old as the Academy for as long as she had, she was quite used to the more than occasional draft. But it seemed nearly impossible in this window-less bathroom, especially with the impermeable shower curtain surrounding her.

She turned over so she was on her stomach and waded to the side of the bath she thought was close to the door—coincidentally where the ends of the blue curtain had met. With her chin resting on the side of the tub the curtain was just within her farthest reach. _There's nothing here_, she told herself, straining her ears all the while to see if she could make out anyone (or any_thing_, she supposed) else in the room. After taking a quiet, deep breath, she jerked the curtain open.

There was absolutely no one there. At least, not that she could see. That's why it was so startling when she heard the scream, coming from apparently right in front of her.

Naturally, she screamed in response, jerking the curtain closed again, and slipped backwards in the tub. For a moment she sat there, stunned. Her unwelcome visitor had stopped screaming but he (despite the high-pitched quality of his scream she had determined it was a boy) sounded well on his way to hyperventilating.

Could ghosts hyperventilate?

But she was jumping to conclusions, she decided, suddenly all business. She stood up and wrapped herself in her towel, in the back of her mind rather annoyed that it had gotten a little wet already. She descended the tile steps carefully, not wanting to slip with her wet feet, and with equal caution opened the curtain for a second time. She didn't want to set whoever it was off again.

"Hello?" she called out, feeling like an idiot. She wasn't sure what else to say, though. There was no reply. This made her angry.

"Look," she said, stepping out and glaring around her, "I don't know just who you think you are, spying on me when I'm in the bath like that, but it is totally _perverted_ and—"

"I'm _sorry_!" a voice cried startlingly close to her, "I didn't mean to—I mean—I didn't see anything, I swear I didn't see anything!"

She was only a little surprised when a boy materialized two feet directly in front of her. He was taller than she was by three or so inches—a few more because he was _floating _a few from the ground. He was African American, she noticed vaguely, but his brown skin had a bizarre grey-ish pallor to it which was most extreme around his eyes and the roots of his hair (the bits of which sticking out from beneath his green beret were stark silver). He was dressed like a normal teen, (except for a strange, cylindrical object hung from one of his belt loops) and glowing, and she shuddered, recalling once more her ordeal the night before.

Getting a hold of herself, she took a moment to wrap her towel more tightly about herself. The ghost looked as if he would be blushing if there'd been any blood in him to rush to his face: he was very pointedly averting his gaze all around the room, sometimes casting his glance toward her but significantly never her chest. She crossed her arms and scowled.

"Tucker," she said, "Just what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Sorry, I—" he began, but was cut off rather abruptly when the metal curtain ring crashed to the floor with a loud clatter, and then the ceiling fell in after it.

-AP-

He peered up at the building analytically, sharp eyes scanning each of the six floors one at a time, checking for damage, for exits, and most importantly, evidence of any humans. It had once been the second largest department store in Amity Park, but it hadn't survived the drastic changes the town had made over the years and the company had shipped off to a new location. They'd left some things behind—old crates, partitions, counters, and mannequins still peering eerily from the darkness through the wide glass windows—those not boarded up, anyway.

No one had claimed the building since, and no one bothered to say that it was haunted. That much was obvious.

What he wanted—needed—to be sure of was that there weren't any humans inside. Kids, exploring on a dare, a vagabond making an impermanent home… there were too many possibilities, and he wasn't sure that he'd be able to keep them safe.

In less than an hour they'd be there, meeting on the top story. Like they had been for months, like it had taken him this long to figure out. It still frustrated him that he hadn't realized sooner—hadn't even been able to sense the ghost portal that must be up there as well. A day later and their plan might have been put into motion.

"Close but no cigar…" he murmured to himself, addressing his absent enemies. He grinned then, and if he hadn't been invisible any passersby would have been immediately alarmed. It was not a pleasant grin. More like a hunter, imagining his prey, relishing in thoughts of the moment he would bring them down. It smacked outlandish on his boyish face.

He flew inside, directly through the old rotating front doors, and began a systematic check for any signs of habitation.

Valerie was going to be very angry, he though guiltily, when she found out he had come without her.

-AP-

Amity Park had always been an average, crowded, urban-ish area. Families lived there because the school system was decent, and if anything they had a good football team. The crime rate was low, the sanitation workers hardly ever went on strike, and then of course there were at least good imitations of the benefits of city life without the same expenses.

Assuming you set your expectations low enough, it was the perfect place to live. Or at least it had been until almost over night it became a beacon of paranormal activity.

Few knew the story of the first portal—the Fentons somehow figured out how to breach the barrier between dimensions and create a gateway between the living world and… the other one. (The 'ghost zone' as it was called, though in casual conversation Amity Park denizens also referred to it as 'over there', 'the other side', or 'the place next door'). Even fewer knew the whole story, the one involving the Fentons' only son. The truth of it was that most people didn't care how the first portal opened and when the time came a year or so later, the second, or the third and so on... They didn't care how over a span of three years the amount of supernatural occurrences had tripled.

The story of Amity Park is the story of human adaptability. A question comes to mind of just how a town literally plagued by ghosts spilling forth from glowing rips in inter-dimensional fabric could keep _working_. The simple answer: it adapted.

Slowly but surely, the town became used to its newfound uniqueness. Certainly many left, but just as certainly others came to take their place. Amity Park became a tourist attraction of sorts, bringing on gawkers, sight-seers, skeptics, and investigators of the unearthly.

Samantha, of course, knew nothing of any of this. She didn't know about the constant struggle to keep the city going even as more and more of it fell apart from frequent ghost attacks. She didn't know about the portals. What she _did _know was that a ghost was attacking _her_, and with no experience fighting ghosts (and with nothing but a towel on) she couldn't be much help to Tucker, who was left fending the assailant off on his own.

"Your left!" she cried helplessly from where she huddled in the corner. Tucker dodged to his right, a hair's breadth away from being caught in the swing of the ghost's powerful claws.

Claws. Samantha thought they looked more like knives. The sort you'd use to go hacking through the jungle, or whatever. The ghost had the form of a giant bear… type thing (its tail might have been too long but it certainly wasn't a cat), and five of those knives extended from each paw. It hadn't spoken a word yet (Samantha wondered if ghost animals _could _speak) and it seemed to have no other goal beyond destroying her parents' bathroom, and possibly eating Tucker as an added bonus.

He'd saved her when the ceiling came down, a huge chunk of wood and plaster and dry wall simply falling in, splashing bathwater everywhere, and even crushing the tile in a few places. The curtain ring falling first had startled her, missing her toes by centimeters, and when the rest fell through he'd shoved her out of the way just in time. Horrified she'd turned to see if he'd been hurt for his efforts, crushed beneath the settling debris, and when she saw him standing atop it completely unruffled it occurred to her that he could probably go through things, and also that she should ask him who he was, and why she knew his name.

Then the eyes had appeared above, red, glowing, narrowed like a hunter's. It had leapt down nimbly as a lion (but it was definitely a bear, even lions couldn't be that big, could they?) and attacked, letting out unearthly shrieks and roars all the way. In the back of her mind Samantha wondered why it couldn't have just come _through _the ceiling like Tucker had gone through the debris, but obviously didn't have the opportunity to ask. More than anything she was afraid for Tucker, and also noting _again_ that she was caught amidst an extremely weird situation and was not in the least weirded out.

She gave a small cry when Tucker dove at the creature headfirst: she was sure it was going to catch him in its claws and rip him apart, and hardly dared watch. But at the last moment he disappeared altogether. The ghost was just as confused as she was, and for a moment quieted. Its front paws, which had remained in the air swinging wildly at Tucker, slid gradually to the floor. It turned its head one way, sniffing. It turned its head the other way, and saw Samantha.

Closing her eyes seemed the only thing to do, so she didn't see when Tucker reappeared again suddenly. But she heard his triumphant laugh, and looked just in time to see him shooting what looked like a beam of green light right into the creature's face. He caught it completely off guard, and with a startled roar it tumbled backwards.

It's feline face (Well maybe it was a sort of cat. A Big Cat.) seemed to have burnt (it was literally steaming), and it crossed its red eyes to get a better look.

"Good thing I actually remembered this for once," said Tucker, pulling out the cylinder she'd noticed earlier, uncapping it and aiming it at the ghost. To her surprise a jet of intense blue light shot out from the end. It looked like light, but encircled the bear-lion like liquid, contorting, pulling, and somehow, amazingly, forcing the beast inside the cylinder. Tucker was grinning. He blew across the top as if it were a smoking gun and slammed the cap back on top.

"Oh yeah!" he cried, "That's right, FIFTY THREE on my own, baby!"

"Is that a thermos?" Samantha asked from her position still in the corner. Tucker cut the robotic victory dance he'd begun short and turned to stare at her. Clearly he'd forgotten she was there at all.

"I mean," Samantha clarified, "That you put like soup in?"

Slowly Tucker's gaze dropped to the object in his hands. "I… I guess so…" He looked back to her. She was wet, and shivering slightly though she didn't seem to notice, and there were bits of ceiling plaster caught in her hair and one on her nose. "Look, Sam," he said, "What are you even doing here?"

She was thrown off by the sudden cold change in his tone. "This is my house," she told him, annoyed, and got the same unwelcome feeling she had when she'd said it to herself earlier. "What are _you _doing here?"

"I always come here," he said, immediately defensive. "It's on my usual route. Ghosts like it here, for whatever reason, and I come to make sure they're not stirring up trouble. I guess today was my lucky day." He almost smiled again at that. He really did seem quite happy about getting to defeat the bear-lion. Samantha supposed she would have congratulated him or at least _thanked _him if not for his sudden attitude.

Arms crossed firmly over her chest, she took a few steps forward and jerked her head toward the door. "Well, I guess you can leave now."

Tucker looked almost as if he were about to laugh, but the look was quickly replaced by a deep frown. Samantha found it unsettling. It made him look so _old_. And while she'd for whatever reason presumed he was the same age as she, she supposed a ghost could really be hundreds of years old and you would never know.

"And leave you here?" he asked her incredulously, "Yeah right. There could be more of them, and then what would you do?" Before she could reply (and she didn't really know what to say: she certainly couldn't deal with one of those things on her own) Tucker's gaze flickered to the clock on the wall—slightly at a tilt after the upheaval but intact and still presumably showing the right time.

"Crap!" Tucker hissed, "I'm supposed to meet Danny and Val in seven minutes. This is so uncool, they're gonna _kill _me!"

Samantha thought this was a rather ridiculous phrase to use, given what he was, but a name popped into her head and she asked him, "Danny? Like Danny Phantom?"

He rolled his eyes. "No, the other Danny we know. Jeez, it's like you don't—" his eyes widened. "Sam… what _are _you doing here?"

She glowered, about to inform him that she did in fact sort of _live _there, but before she could he waved a hand, brushing away his own question. "Whatever, we'll talk later. Right now I've got to go, and I guess you'll just have to come with me." He reached a hand out to her expectantly, and for a moment she stared at it, wondering just what it was he wanted her to do.

"Tucker," she deadpanned, "Do you think I could find something to wear first?"

He looked again as if he'd be blushing, dropping his hand to his side and muttering, "Oh, uh, right. Sure."

Amity Park was turning out to be nothing like Samantha had imagined.

To be continued…

Post A/N: Well there you have it. I'm sure that was all very confusing, and believe me I sympathize, but you're just going to have to wait until the next chapter to find out what's going on! See you there!

(Super thanks to bluename, cariadiorarua, kpfan72491, xX-Silver-and-cold-Xx, KHFREAK14, look for the girl with the…, and Orlandoroxmysox!)

NEXT TIME: One word: Danny.


	4. The Missing Portal

Author's Note: Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to the fourth installment of this little story. I'm glad you've made it back. I hope you won't be so confused this time around you decide to give up. Any and all support from you guys is greatly appreciated! (It sounds like I'm asking for money… that'd be nice, but completely unnecessary. Nothing wrong with a good old fashioned review!) ((Or money, you know, if you really wanted to…))

ANYWAY, thanks for coming and have fun!

Obligatory meaningful song lyrics:

_Literate and stylish  
__Kissable and quiet  
__That's what girls' dreams are made of  
__And that's all you need to know  
__You have it or you don't  
__You have it or you don't_

--_Taking Back Sunday_

Remembering Amity

Chapter 4: The Missing Portal

Danny Phantom. The name warmed her, lacing through her veins like giddy fire. It had come on suddenly, almost randomly, as all of the memories she'd regained so far had, but none had inspired a reaction like this. She recalled the feeling of seeing the boy for the first time as the Dream Seer showed her. What had been most startling about the experience was not _what _she felt but _how much _she felt. It was too much feeling, too much to be described, too much to be healthy. It was scary, but she wouldn't have given it up for anything.

And now she knew his name, spinning it round and round her head like a mantra, and feeling lighter than air.

This may or may not also have been a result of the fact that she _was _actually flying. Tucker had an awkward grip beneath her arms, and together they soared through the city. She could tell he was having a bit of trouble keeping a hold of her and so it was slow going, but she found this made the experience more enjoyable. If her thoughts hadn't been so jumbled she might have liked to pick apart the city, interpreting people and places from her new bird's view. Or just enjoy the breeze.

"Almost there," Tucker informed her.

She shivered slightly, chilled by the altitude and Tucker's frosty grip, but said nothing. She licked her lips, dried by the wind, and tried to come up with something, anything that she could say to Danny Phantom that would express her rediscovered feelings.

Somehow "hi" didn't seem to cut it.

"Was Danny my boyfriend?" she asked, not quite registering that she was saying the words out loud. She felt Tucker jerk and they both dropped a few feet lower, an experience that caused her already fluttering heart to skip a beat. "Easy there, Superman," she grumbled after collecting herself again.

"W-why do you ask that?" Tucker asked in return. His voice cracked.

Samantha pursed her lips, but wondered… why _had _she asked? It just seemed to make the most sense. Surely if she felt this strongly for him, like now that she remembered him she would die if she ever forgot again… surely that meant he'd been her boyfriend. At _least_. There was no way she could have carried those feelings around inside her otherwise, especially when she seemed to know him so well.

Tucker's voice adopted a different tone altogether. If she didn't know better she would say he was going for _suave_… and missing the mark by several degrees. "Actually," he said, casually, "I was going to wait until you'd remembered on your own, but if you really want to know: _I _was your boyfriend."

-AP-

He recalled having been in the store once or twice before, once with his mother, once with Jazz, both women having dragged him along in a vain attempt to get him to pick out some new clothes. He couldn't remember where everything had been exactly, but he could imagine. In his mind's eye he saw the fluorescent lights, obnoxious and a bit painful on the eyes like the ones at school. He passed a series of tall metal shelves on the second floor and imagined them packed with boxes of different pots and pans (he and Jazz had never considered buying a single item from the kitchen section, not wanting to encourage that sort of thing in their household considering the usual results). And he remembered that new clothes smell that carried through most of the store, the one that his mother would wash garments first to get rid of, though he never really saw the point.

It was irritating sporting all these vague recollections and imaginings, and applying them to the building, dark and forsaken as it was now. They were distractions, and it was necessary to be entirely focused. In his defense, he _was _exhausted, but would never allow himself to use this as an excuse. He shook his head fiercely, hoping to dislodge the thoughts of the past, and keep his senses tuned to the present.

He was relieved to find the building clear. You never could be too sure, after all. Ever since the first tourist wave the more haunted a building was supposed to be, the more likely you were to find some ignorant human or another hanging around. They _wanted _to be scared. What they didn't realize was that they could get seriously hurt.

Finally he felt it while scanning the fifth floor one last time: that faint nudge to his senses, a distinct feeling of familiarity that he couldn't attribute to actually seeing or hearing anything. He wasn't sure what it was about the building that had kept it hidden from him from the outside, but whatever it was it meant that his enemies were extremely lucky or way smarter than he'd given them credit for. But the jig was up: he knew their portal was directly above and about forty feet to his left as plainly as if he could see it.

It was fortunate he was so near, because he was also able to tell the exact moment when they arrived. He felt no change in temperature, but between seconds his breath condensed into visibility, forming a small white fog in front of him before dissipating. He smiled.

-AP-

"You were not," Samantha assured Tucker. Her confidence seemed to throw him off.

"How do _you _know?" he whined.

She rolled her eyes, though he couldn't see it, and explained, "Because I just remembered why I know your name. You came to my house, the day I came home from the hospital. I was in the living room: I saw the whole thing. You wanted to come in and see me, you wanted some one to tell me that 'Tucker' had come by, but my dad turned you away." She frowned. "He said you always used to pick on me. You made me miserable."

To her surprise Tucker only laughed at that. It was probably one of his nicer laughs, she decided, and as he did so he unconsciously raised them both to a considerably higher altitude with ease. "_That's _weird," he said, "I'm pretty sure most of the time it was _you _picking on _me._"

And then she was laughing a little bit too, recalling, "That's right. I guess I did. You have disgusting eating habits, you womanize, and you're a total tech geek."

He laughed again, but assured her, "Fine, fine, I wasn't your boyfriend. But for your information my geek days are pretty much over. I haven't been able to touch a PDA without frying it since I don't know when. So, you know, if that was some kind of turn-off to you…" He trailed off, still sounding amused, but the thought of Tucker without gadgets caused Samantha to sober immediately. How had this happened?

"How…" she asked tentatively, hating to spoil his mood but too curious not to ask, "How did you die, anyway?"

Tucker seemed only mildly surprised by the question. "Well, actually, funny story…"

One, it seemed, he would have to tell at another time. A gust of wind rushed passed them, and Samantha was oddly warmed as if something very large had just breathed on her. This was a nonsensical sensation, especially since she could see what had caused the wind only moments later. It was a dark figure on what seemed to be a rocket-powered surf board which was moving so fast it was already a hundred yards ahead of them. In a daring swoop that showed his distinct control over the device, the rider veered around and came back toward them, this time at a slower pace.

Samantha wondered how something like that actually _worked_. There didn't seem to be any handles or controls, but the board sped or slowed and turned or didn't turn as if it was part of the surfer himself, responding to his thoughts, instead of just a piece of equipment.

"Crap, she looks mad," Tucker said glumly, and Samantha realized that the rider was in fact a girl. Even with the distance that remained between them there was no mistaking it now. Her figure, standing firm and at ease on the smooth surface of the board, was curvy. _Ridiculously curvy_, Samantha thought, wondering where the sudden wave of jealousy was coming from.

The rider stopped short a few feet in front of them. A fiberglass mask allowed Samantha to see her face: she was very pretty, and she definitely looked angry. The rest of her body was adorned in sleek, metallic armor, gunmetal black with red accents. Like the board, it didn't seem nearly as cumbersome with Valerie as it should have. It looked natural, like she was born to wear it.

_Valerie_, Samantha realized, surprised. So this was Valerie. Tucker said they'd be meeting her. She felt another unexplained stab of jealousy.

"Who is _that_?" Valerie was asking. Her arms were crossed and she was actually tapping her foot, a habit that Samantha thought would be better employed on solid ground. Tucker's grip under her arms was periodically slackening and tightening quickly again: he was nervous. Samantha felt nervous too. The eyes glaring at her from behind that ominous mask glittered with danger and hostility. They ran over Samantha's entire body, taking in every detail in seconds. Samantha glared back, tossing her head to get her long hair from off her face. She wanted Valerie to know she wasn't afraid.

Valerie's scowl almost immediately converted to an expression of surprise. She didn't strike Samantha as the sort of person who liked surprises. "Oh my God, is that Sam Manson?"

Not appreciating that the question had been directed to Tucker rather than herself, Samantha shot back pointedly, "It's _Samantha_."

Valerie ignored her. "What the hell is going on?" she growled to Tucker, "What is she doing here!?"

Tucker laughed nervously, "In the air? I brought her."

_If looks could kill_… Samantha thought, noting Valerie's very piercing glare. Tucker seemed to get the same feeling and amended, "I don't know why she's in Amity Park; we didn't exactly have time for gossip considering we were almost _mauled by a twenty foot demon bear!_" The bear-cat _had _been huge, but twenty feet was definitely pushing it. Samantha made no effort to correct him though, especially when he proudly told Valerie "_And _I beat it all by myself. Besides, I was already late."

She was surprised when Valerie's expression softened momentarily and she said, "Really? Good job," before her condescension slammed back into place like a wall. "And damn right you're _late_. I don't know how I stand working with you _boys_ like this, you wouldn't know consideration if it bit you in the—"

"Where's Danny, anyway?" Tucker asked blithely.

"_Late_," Valerie informed him. Samantha wondered if she was continuously pissed off or if she reserved it all for Tucker.

Tucker asked her, "So what do we do?" Samantha was surprised when Valerie answered with a distinct set of instructions, all of which Tucker was clearly willing to obey as if they were soldiers and she of a higher rank. They were just kids, after all, no matter how scary Valerie was, and it was weird.

"_First_," Valerie snapped, "You're going to let _me _carry _Samantha _here from now on, I'm surprised you've managed to hold onto her for this long. Then when we go down to the meeting place Danny has _three minutes _to show up or we're going in on our own."

"He'll freak out if we end up going in by ourselves," Tucker observed, but he was already gently lowering Samantha onto the back of Valerie's rocket board. For a moment Samantha felt sick, feeling all of her own weight again, and her arms were sore from where Tucker had held them for so long. The board didn't so much as wobble.

"I don't care," said Valerie. Then she addressed Samantha directly for the first time, saying "I'd hold on if I were you." Samantha only just had time to put her arms around the other's girl's waist before the board kicked off at a drastic speed, spiraling lower and forward, back to the city.

-AP-

Space heaters. Danny would have laughed if it hadn't been absolutely necessary to remain silent for the time being. He just couldn't believe it. _That _was the diabolical plan? _That _was what had kept the missing portal open for so long, and what's more, hidden from his detection? He had expected something much stranger, much more sinister.

It was also ironic, in a way, given that years ago he had been _afraid _of them. Jazz had had one in her room, considering how the amounts of ectoplasm to be found in various forms around the Fenton household had the tendency to make everything seem a bit colder. A younger, more ignorant version of himself had been afraid of it because he had learned in school that they could cause fires. There wasn't any possession in his house he was particularly afraid of losing (God knew it'd be a blessing to get rid of some of the wayward ghost artillery in the basement) but he was afraid that they would all sleep through it and burn to a crisp. Especially his father, Jack, who could sleep through anything, or, assuming the rest of the family had gotten out okay, would most certainly risk his life to save some of the previously mentioned weaponry.

He had bigger and badder things than space heaters to be scared of now, but upon closer inspection of _these _space heaters, he realized he might just have cause for caution.

Each of the twenty or so devices (all different sizes and models, some emitting a _whirr_ing sound that seemed absurdly normal given the situation) was plugged into a small, cubic object that glowed bright green. The boxes and the ghost portal (which stood dead center in the barren storage room, just where he'd thought it be, though he hadn't imagined he'd find the circular shrine of space heaters around it) lit the room green, and the heaters cast bizarre shadows on the walls.

Seven ghosts were converged outside the circle, all familiar as those who had been terrorizing the city for the past month. Their attacks had been so spaced apart, so apparently random, he'd never have guessed they were conspiring together. This annoyed him, as did the fact that they _were _all familiar except for one, who appeared to be the ring-leader.

He was glaringly shorter and smaller than the others, shorter than Danny even by a few inches. He was also awkwardly normal in appearance: his skin, rather than being the glaring green shade most common in ghosts, looked superficially tan, he had blond hair that was long enough to curl at his shoulders, and a trim goatee. He sported a sleek, expensive looking suit, and a pair of sunglasses, and overall had the look of a movie producer or a business mogul or some other such person who wouldn't have given Danny _Fenton _the time of day.

Except for the extra pair of arms, one limb extending from the front and one from the back. Those were a little weird.

Invisible, Danny watched the meeting commence.

"Okay," Sunglasses began. His bloated ego dripped through each word. "We're all here, cool, great. Who's got some good news for me?"

"I do," the only female of the group was quick to say. She was tiny: only about a foot from head to toe, and Danny had a particular dislike toward her because she had the annoying ability to possess more than one person at a time. "Two days ago I made everyone in Buff's Gym stomp on their iPod. It was _hilarious_!"

The others found this hilarious too: they laughed raucously for about two minutes straight. Danny tried not to be amused himself. These were the grand schemes of the elusive ghost gang?

"I've got one too, Chaz!" another ghost said excitedly, breaking into the laughter. Danny filed the name away in his mind for future use. This ghost was one of larger ones, big, green, slow and troll-like. It had become apparent over the weeks that his specialty was destruction.

"Let's hear it, baby," Sunglasses, whom he now knew was 'Chaz', said boredly. Danny noted that he had not been quite as amused as the others over the iPod story, and he could tell that each would try to outdo the others to win his approval.

"I tried rearranging an apartment building," the large ghost said proudly, "You know, I thought to myself 'Hey, that first floor would look a lot better if it were on top!' Well I _tried _to fix it, you know, out of the _goodness _of my heart, but the whole thing just fell to pieces. So of course I had to knock down the building across the street too, you know, so it was symmemicral."

"Symmetrical," the small female ghost snapped while the others were busy laughing. Chaz seemed more impressed with this tale.

"Excellent," he said, "Great. Super." He grinned, and Danny saw that he had way too many teeth, each sharpened to a needle point.

He was also blisteringly angry now. By the time he'd arrived on the scene at those apartment buildings (having been held up by, as he now recognized him here, the large bird-like ghost who'd been terrorizing a shopping mall at exactly the same moment) they'd both been reduced to rubble and foundations. Lots of people were hurt, everyone lost their homes. This wasn't funny anymore.

He sucked in a deep breath and spoke as loudly as he could, forcing some power behind his voice so it would echo from the walls. "I hate to break up the party kids, but the neighbor's are complaining. Fun's over."

The ghosts stopped talking and laughing, and each began to comically swivel their heads in a furious attempt to discover where the voice had come from.

"That sounds like Danny Phantom," one whispered nervously, as if lowering his voice would ensure the intruder wouldn't hear. Danny almost laughed.

"Don't be stupid, stupid," the female ghost whispered back. "He can't have found this place, we made _sure _of it. There's no way he could—"

"Actually," Danny said, normally, and he appeared to them now. "That's not quite true." The six minion-type ghosts gasped and floated several feet backwards. Chaz held his ground, shoving all four hands in various pockets and attempting to look bored. A drop of glowing green sweat slid down the side of his face.

"You see," Danny explained, casual as can be, all the while advancing toward the group, "Your little space heater trick had the double advantage of keeping your portal open _and _disguising it from my senses, that is, the senses of a _halfa_. What you didn't realize is that I've got a friend who's a full-out _ghost_."

The bird ghost, though still frightened, grew immediately indignant. "The geeky ghost from the mall!" he squawked, flapping his wings in outrage, "_You _said he was another halfa!"

"I was joking," Danny replied, smiling. It was a rather frightening smile. "You guys _do _like a good joke, don't you?"

"Is that all you got kid?" Chaz cut in. By now his followers were backed against a wall, and looking near ready to spring through it to safety. When they heard their leader's confident tone they began to creep forward again, cautiously. "So what, you found our portal? And now you know we're all acting as a group, as if a smart kid like you didn't figure that out already. You think you can stop us? I hate to break it to you, babe, but you're a little outnumbered. I'd say _one _star out of _seven_."

"I guess you're right," Danny conceded, obviously unalarmed. "We'd better hurry up and get this over with so you guys can get back to terrorizing the city and all… but before we do," his eyes, which had previously been glowing an intense shade of green, became very perceptively bright blue. "You'll forgive me if I come off as a bit _cold_, but these things are _really _getting on my nerves!"

He landed, and before any of the ghosts could move to stop him stomped one foot down on the floor with a force that shook the entire building. From there a track of glimmering blue began to form, racing around to each space heater and catching them up in huge blocks of ice. The temperature in the room immediately chilled, and already the edges of the portal looked a little less defined.

Chaz finally seemed on the verge of losing his cool. "Don't just stand there, you has-beens!" he snarled to his minions, "He'll ruin us!"

As one they rushed at him. Danny felt bird claws latch onto his arm and instinctively phased through them, creating a small ectoplasm bomb and placing it into the bird's beak for good measure. At the same time he dodged the troll-ghost's enormous fists, which consequently slammed into the floor with enough force that they were stuck there for a full three seconds. By the time he raised them again Danny was wrestling with one of the other ghosts: a middle-aged man, who seemed human but displayed some decidedly ape-like qualities. The other ghost had the advantage of being bigger, with much longer arms, but even as he was momentarily squashed beneath him Danny's mind was buzzing.

He felt the icy floor beneath him, noted the slow-as-ever troll ghost, who looked ready to have another go at pounding Danny into the floor. In a sudden movement he threw all of his weight to his right side and the ice did the rest. He slid safely out of the way while the ape-like ghost was left behind, too late for the troll-ghost to stop his overlarge fists from pounding down directly on top of him.

Unfazed he raised his gigantic arms again, but before he could have a third try Danny launched a punch into his unprotected gut, sending the ghost sprawling backwards until he slammed into the opposite wall, and for the moment, stilled.

The remaining three minions were decidedly less enthusiastic to begin an open attack after seeing the others taken out so quickly and neatly, and for a moment they circled nervously around Danny like a pack of wolves, but much less certain of their abilities. Chaz, who had stood apart to watch, was seething.

"This is _not cool_," he growled, "Just _get him_, he's right in front of you!"

"Yeah, come on and get me!" Danny teased. The remaining ghosts were the tiny woman, another one who he knew could produce throwing knives from anywhere on his person in the blink of an eye, and third who relied on good old-fashioned ecto-blasts, though Danny wasn't entirely certain which of the three he preferred fighting. "Come and get me," he said again. "Don't be scared. I mean, I _am _famous, and that means that if you take me down you'll be famous too! Just think how impressed Chaz over there will be."

Chaz's eyes, which had been blue before, momentarily glowed bright red. "What?" he hissed.

"In fact," Danny continued, "You'd better make your move _right now _because he'll be most impressed with whoever jumps at it first. Besides, you've got a better shot at getting all the credit without the others in the way…" He was speaking entirely to the female ghost now, having decided earlier on she would be the easiest to bait. He was a little annoyed when the attack came from behind instead in the form of an ecto-blast, but he'd kept his senses well attuned for anything. Just in time he whirled around, a gleaming shield of ecto energy causing the other ghost's attack to bounce away harmlessly.

That had done it, though. The other two, unwilling to be outshined by their colleague, leapt into the effort with new vigor.

-AP-

"He's not here," Valerie said darkly once they'd landed. "I could die of shock."

Samantha stood on the cement sidewalk, doubled over, hands clutched on her knees. Riding Valerie's board had been an entirely different experience from flying with Tucker. For one thing, it had been about ten times faster. There was also the sickening feeling at each change in speed or direction that _nothing was holding you up_. She'd felt safe with Tucker: ghosts by their very nature defied the laws of physics. But Valerie was human, and she was riding around on human technology that could fail or fall at any moment.

Though she had to admit, as she was finally catching her breath and beginning to feel her stomach settle into its proper place, if she hadn't been so scared it would have been a pretty sweet ride. There was something romantic about defying death like that.

As she thought all of this Tucker and Valerie were quietly arguing. It was a strange sight, and she felt immediately conspicuous. After all, Valerie was still in full combat regalia, and it was pretty difficult _not _to tell that Tucker was a ghost, especially since he'd somehow allowed his legs to disappear now, replaced by a wispy tail of ghost energy, as he kept himself afloat a few inches from the ground. Both stood in plain sight on the street corner like it was nothing.

But when Samantha looked around she realized that there weren't any people. This was strange. There had been plenty of people on the streets earlier when she'd first taken a cab to her parents' house, and she'd seen more still while flying overhead. This street was entirely abandoned.

"I'm not waiting any longer, Tucker!" Valerie yelled, "You _know _where he is! You knew he would do this just as well as I did. This is so lame, one of us totally should have been following him!"

"You don't know that's where he went," Tucker argued, but he didn't seem very certain of his own point. "He could be held up somewhere, you know his usual route is twice as long as either of ours—"

"And why is that?" Valerie snapped. "I know why he does this. I get it, okay? But as long as he keeps _protecting _us like this I'm just as likely to die from worrying so much!"

Valerie did look just about ready to die from worrying, Samantha thought, heart sinking. She must really care about Danny.

"Where _is _Danny?" she asked quietly. The other two abruptly halted their discussion and turned to her blankly.

Valerie snapped out of it first and told Samantha angrily, "He's in _there_." Samantha followed her pointed finger down the street and up to one of the upper stories of a tall, rectangular building. A department store, she remembered with sudden clarity, though it appeared to be years in its abandonment.

"Not necessarily!" Tucker cut in defensively.

To Samantha's amazement, the whole building began to shake. Her first thought was _earthquake_, though Amity Park wasn't anywhere near a fault line, but then she realized she couldn't feel it in her feet, and none of the surrounding area seemed affected. Something had happened inside the old department store that had rattled it to its foundations. A few of the un-boarded windows on the lower floors shattered.

Valerie crossed her arms, smirking triumphantly at Tucker, who merely looked resigned.

"Okay," he admitted, "I guess he _is _in there."

"Let's go," Valerie growled. Samantha had wondered where her board went but saw now that it was retractable: by kicking one foot out it unfolded piece by piece from the bottom of Valerie's feet, ready to go in seconds. No wonder it had seemed so much a part of the other girl. When it was fully assembled she sped off, down toward the large building.

"Um…" Tucker said awkwardly, beginning to float after her, "Danny probably needs our help, so uh, I've got to go…"

"You're going to _leave _me here?" Samantha realized, an edge to her voice. Tucker looked nervous, like he was afraid of her reaction. Like some one with ghost powers had any right to be afraid of a normal human like Samantha.

"I, uh…" he sputtered, "Yeah, I guess so. We'll be back though!" He tried to smile then, as if to reassure her or himself or both, and then quickly flew off after Valerie. Samantha watched after them: Valerie shot some sort of electrically pink energy beam at the building, blasting a sizeable hole in the wall that allowed her to fly inside. Tucker merely became intangible, like he had in her bathroom when the ceiling collapsed, and then they were both gone, gone inside the building that was so important for whatever reason. Gone to find Danny.

Samantha made her way to the curb and sat down, elbows on her knees and supporting her chin on her fists. She was achy and cold from the morning's events. Her hair was dry now, but tangled and puffy from the flight, probably awful-looking. Frankly she was getting a little annoyed with its length. There was another crash from the building, and her heart skipped a beat, but she didn't move. What could she do to help anyway? Valerie and Tucker had it under control. Just look at the way Tucker took out that monster this morning on his own, while she could only stand around and watch…

Here she was. She'd found her past. But if this is what it was like she couldn't help but think that maybe her parents hadn't been so horribly wrong to want to send her away.

At least there was Danny to look forward to. Somehow, she knew, when she met him, everything would fall into place.

-AP-

It had been kind of amusing, seeing them turn on each other like that. One minute the three ghosts had all been attacking Danny (which hadn't exactly been a picnic—the jerk with the knives had gotten him directly in the shoulder while he was distracted trying to keep the female out of his head), and all it took was one shout of "Back off, he's _mine_!" from one of them to start the free-for-all. It had been remarkably easy after that, since the odds had been evened out considerably, and Danny hadn't even had to bother with beating two of them. They took care of that themselves.

"You seemed like the kind of guy who knew," Danny laughed, surveying his handiwork (the prone forms of four of the original six attackers littered the floor—the other two had come to their senses and fled through the contracting ghost portal), "but I'll be glad to remind you: in movies the bad guys always attack the hero _one at a time_."

And suddenly Chaz wasn't so angry anymore. He looked almost pleased, as if Danny had left him some grand opening to do something awful. Which, in fact, he had.

"You," Chaz said derisively, "Have obviously never seen _the Matrix_."

And somehow, bizarrely, there were two of him. He'd split himself, but not in any way Danny had ever seen or attempted before. The extra pair of arms which had emerged from his chest and back simply _stepped out_, suddenly attached to another person, an exact copy of the original. The original when he still had _four _arms. To Danny's amazement this new Chaz split in the same way, stepping out of the side of the body easily, and again and again, until there were at least ten and counting.

"Well now I know where you got your wardrobe from," Danny snorted, but he sounded uncertain even to himself.

"In my business you do what works," said the multiple Chaz-s, in almost-unison. The overall effect was very alarming. "Somehow I get the feeling you weren't expecting this, kid. And Jazz once told me you were _clever_."

Danny narrowed his eyes, which glowed so brightly they out-shined the ghost portal. His hands were lit too now, ecto-energy building up, waiting to be let loose. "_What?_" he asked, voice dripping venom.

"Oops," his continuously multiplying enemies laughed, "I guess I shouldn't have brought her up." And as one they dove at him.

-AP-

"It's over there," Tucker whispered, "I can feel it."

Valerie was on foot now, he floating beside her, his aura lighting the way through the darkened corridor. They were on the top story of the building, making there way through a series of rooms that were too bland to ever have been used for anything but storage.

"Too bad you didn't feel it three weeks ago," Valerie shot back.

"What do you want?" Tucker whined, "It's not my fault this place is on _your_ usual route, and it's not like I'm much of a real ghost anyway. Though I don't get how they can even stand it, coming here, it's seriously like a magnet or something right now…"

"Shut up," Valerie hissed, and he did. They both listened, hard. There was nothing to hear. All of the crashing from earlier had come to a very decided end, which could mean one of a few things. "One door left," Valerie murmured. They come to the end of the hall. She activated a large, gleaming weapon that sprung out of one of her arm gauntlets and reached carefully to the doorknob.

When the door opened on it's own she jumped back neatly, covering several feet in one leap, and trained the gun directly at the figure in the doorway. Tucker held his ground, charging up both hands for a powerful ecto-blast.

"Hi, guys," Danny said wearily. "I'm glad it's just you Tucker, I thought it might be another one out here."

"Another one _what_?" Tucker asked curiously, but he was grinning. He knew Danny could handle it. …well, he told himself that _now_, anyway.

Valerie wasn't going to take it quite as easily. It took her a few moments to lower her weapon, and she realized she'd been wound tight as a spring. Trying to shake it off, she deactivated the gun and launched herself at her friend.

"_Danny Fenton I swear you are going to be the death of me_!" she cried, throwing her arms abruptly around his shoulders. He hugged her back awkwardly with one arm, hoping Valerie wouldn't notice his injured shoulder and freak out.

"Cool," Tucker quipped, "Then we can all be ghosts."

Valerie rolled her eyes and finally let go of Danny, stepping back to inspect his condition. As expected she wasn't pleased about the knife injury. "You know I hate it when you do this, Danny. We could have had your back!"

"He got me in the front," Danny said, and before she could protest anymore he indicated they should follow him back into the room. Valerie was prepared to reactivate her weapon, but there were no ghosts inside. Just the portal, green and whirling along obliviously in the center of the room, surrounded completely by a large ring of… ice sculptures?

"Space heaters," Tucker observed quizzically. He floated around to inspect them more closely. "That doesn't make any sense, though! The heat energy should have closed the portal, not kept it open!"

"Not if it was heat energy generated from _ecto_-energy," Danny explained, indicating the frozen boxes.

Realization hit Valerie first. She ran up to see for herself, metallic boots somehow managing perfect traction on the slippery floor, and wrung her hands. "Damn," she said, "Damn, that's smart."

"It's kind of ironic," Tucker said with a sly grin in Danny's direction, "Since I remember not so long ago this friend of mine was afrai—"

"Shut up," Danny said quickly, smiling back. It was not a nice smile.

"We didn't even think of this," Valerie murmured, dragging the conversation back on course.

"No," Danny agreed sadly, "And look what happened. These guys have been causing trouble for weeks…" His fists clenched, thinking of the apartment buildings.

"_Who _has?" demanded Valerie. "Where are they?"

Danny nodded to the portal. "A few escaped, the rest are in those." He indicated three Fenton thermoses where they lay on the floor.

"Three?" Tucker asked, sounding impressed, "Dude, how many _were _there?"

"Look," said Danny tiredly, "Let's just talk about it when we get home, okay? I'd kind of like to get out of here."

-AP-

Danny was incredibly tired. He was finding it hard to even keep up with Tucker as the two floated along the sidewalk, Valerie slightly in the lead. He could tell that Tucker was dying to hear details from the fight, and that Valerie was dying to chew him out for ditching them and going on his own, but he wasn't sure he had the energy to handle either just yet. Sleep first, he thought, and maybe fixing up his shoulder too, though it wasn't a terribly bad wound. He knew what it felt like to be dizzy from blood-loss and he wasn't quite at that point yet.

The arrogant ghost's words were spinning around in his head like a top, making him anxious and frustrated at the same time. _Jazz once told me you were clever_… Just where had he got off bringing Jazz into it like that? He was trying to confuse Danny, that was obvious, he wanted to egg him on. Make him angry enough to make a mistake. Tactics as familiar to Danny as breathing. It had almost worked at first, too.

Now that the fight was over it was safe to let himself sink into turmoil. Just what had that Chaz guy known about Jazz anyway?

He nearly crashed into Valerie when she stopped dead in her tracks, but automatically phased through her instead. He immediately wished he hadn't. He wished he'd stayed behind her, somewhat hidden from view, or become invisible, or sank into the ground, or _anything_… anything but finding himself face to face with the last person he wanted to see.

She stood up from where she'd been sitting on the curve. She was tired and disheveled and apparently speechless, her lips parted as if she wanted to say something but couldn't make a sound. She reached up a hand to tuck her long hair behind her ears.

She was _beautiful_.

Seconds ticked passed as the four teens stood together in silence. Tucker realized it was up to him to make some stupid comment or another to break the extremely awkward moment, but Danny beat him to it, and not in a way that made it any less awkward.

"I'm… I've got to…" he said, but they never found out just what it was he had to do because at that moment he launched himself into the air, speeding away faster than Valerie's jet sled.

Valerie watched after him sadly, then turned to glare at Samantha, wondering if she could actually blame her for still being there when she and Tucker hadn't exactly given her another option. She didn't say anything about it though, when she saw Samantha's stunned expression. Instead she activated her jet sled, and jerked her head indicating that Samantha should get on.

"Are you coming or what?"

Samantha numbly did as she was told, and this time barely noticed the frightening qualities of the ride. Instead she saw only Danny's face, the way he'd looked when he first saw her.

Horrified. Disappointed.

And she'd thought they'd _loved _each other!

To be continued…

Post A/N: Yes, I did actually say "_rocket_ _power_ed surf board" somewhere up there. And it was unintentional. And noticing it at all was _really _unintentional.

ANYWAY, I hope this chapter didn't disappoint. I know if anything you're all wondering what I'm talking about with the portals and the space heaters… I think I falsely promised some clarification last time, but don't worry, the next chapter has more explanations than you can shake a stick at!

(Super thanks to: CharmedNightSkye, Esme Kali Phantom, kpfan72491, bluename, Silent Tears of Joy, NixedFreedom, lynn138, KHFREAK14, and cariadiorarua!)

NEXT TIME: Sam's world may be crashing down around her… but soon so will everyone else's.


	5. Jazz's Last Discovery

Author's Note: I know it has been soooo long, and I'm completely despicable… I apologize profusely, beg forgiveness, grovel at your feet, etc. This was an extremely hard chapter to get through. There's like, no action. Unfortunately there's not much I can do about it. It's hard to have lengthy, imperitive-to-the-plot conversations while battling a huge, psychotic monster, or whatever. (Actually, we may get one of those in due time...) Next time I will hopefully be much more prompt (and interesting!)

Also, in case any one wants to make a note of this, I believe that it's been so long that this story is officially AU. Obviously it was in the first place, but I haven't been able to keep up with the progression of the series (if it has been at all, I can't find any clear answers anywhere) but I just thought I'd make an official sort of declaration. :3

Please endeavor to suspend your disbelief as I throw out far too much fake science.

Obligatory meaningful song lyrics:

_Three weeks ago we said our goodbyes  
I saw there were tears in his eyes  
Deep down I wished he'd make things all right  
But he shook his head, and drove into the night_

_And I screamed: JONNY DON'T GO TO THE NUCLEAR PLANT!!!_

--_Zombie Prom_

Remembering Amity

Chapter 5: Jazz's Last Discovery

When she first awoke she was aware of very little. Her senses ambushed her with signals: sights, sounds, smells, but she couldn't understand any of them. For moments there was only a strange, dreamy blur, and breathing. The first sound she could make sense of was that of air forcefully rushing in and out of her lungs. Then she realized if she was breathing then she must be alive, and after that other things started to make sense.

The whirlwind of colors around her resolved itself into definite shapes and shadows. She saw and felt she was lying down, but she was in a strange sort of room. Her bedroom? She was in a bed, but the room didn't really seem to be a bedroom. It was too impersonal. All whitewashed. There was a potent scent of cleaner… disinfectant… iodine? Something. Something smelled, and not very pleasantly. She shifted a little bit and heard a sound and was startled. That had been her making that sound. Her voice? Had she said something? No, just moaned. She tried again, louder. Her throat felt dry and scratchy.

"You're awake," said a voice. It took her a second, but she knew it wasn't her making the sound this time. She hadn't felt it, and it also sounded different. Lower. Huskier. After a few exploratory eye swivels she attached the voice to a woman standing two feet or so to her right. She was older, probably fifty-something, with a severe sort of face and slate grey hair pulled back into a braid. She was dressed in loose fitting clothes that were all the same turquoise color. Was she a doctor?

So she was in the hospital?

"Honey," the woman was saying, "Can you hear me? Do you understand me? Do you know where you are?"

So she said, "The hospital," because really that was the only answer that made sense, but meanwhile she was thinking that the woman's voice had probably been ruined by smoking. Her own voice creaked when she answered, and she'd sounded almost as bad. Did she have a smoking problem too? Weird. She couldn't seem to remember. She took a few deep breaths, curiously trying to determine whether it was harder or not than was normal.

Probably not, she decided, because if she'd been unconscious in a hospital for whatever amount of time she'd probably crave a cigarette after waking up. She didn't.

But that was strange, not knowing at first whether she smoked or not. What else did or didn't she do? This was quite alarming.

Meanwhile the woman was most persistent with her questions, finally coming to "Can you tell me your name?"

And, she was very confused to discover, she couldn't. Her name… how could she not know her own name? Everyone knew their own name. Names are a very useful tool. It's how you identify yourself. It gets rid of all the confusion that shouting "Hey you!" all the time would cause. Fabulous thing, names. She didn't seem to have one. But this was extremely embarrassing, and who was this lady anyway to know whether or not she had a name? So she said the first thing that came her head.

"Jasmine," she told her, trying to make it sound normal. It didn't seem right to her, but she supposed nothing would at the moment.

The woman only looked even more worried. Her hand, wrist wrapped in gold chains and bangles, shot out and hit a button or switch or something above the bed, out of sight.

"Honey," she said, "Your name isn't Jasmine. It's Samantha. You're Samantha Manson and you are fourteen years old and you have been in a terrible accident."

-AP-

How Valerie and Tucker managed to have a conversation at such high speeds was beyond Samantha. The wind rushing around her ears blocked out most of their words, and the rest were incomprehensible. They seemed to be very focused on _space heaters_, which was really strange to Samantha, who had never considered them particularly threatening or even noticeable. Maybe a ghost had been possessing them or something? Wasn't there a ghost that could take control of electronics?

One thing that she was certain the flying teens never discussed was Danny. Somehow this distinct un-mentioning spoke volumes. His presence dragged between them, as if he hadn't flown off angrily at all but was with them now. Samantha felt it, and she felt sick.

His appearance had shocked her into silence. Of course it had been dumb to imagine he would look just the same as the form the Dream Seer had taken: cute, on the short side, awkwardly adolescent… she didn't quite _remember _him yet, consciously, but the images tucked away somewhere in her mind were years out of date. Maybe she hadn't expected a _ghost _to be able to grow up, though she supposed he wasn't really a ghost. What did it really mean, anyway, to be half ghost and half human?

What had struck Samantha the most about him were his eyes. They were pretty eyes, fantastically green, but mostly they were _old_. She'd heard that before: about people having "old eyes". She'd always thought it was a strange way to gauge some one's age or experience. Her own eyes had always seemed blank to her, blank and revealing nothing. Others had often assured her that her eyes spoke volumes, that they radiated confidence.

Right now she didn't feel confident at all. She felt scared and alone and fourteen again, forced back into a life she didn't remember, to simply "start over" amongst peers with years and years of experience behind them. It hadn't been anything like easy; she'd fought tooth and nail to be "normal" again, to function on her own. Seeing Danny, and not just seeing how he'd aged over the years but seeing those years in his _eyes_… she felt young and stupid by comparison.

There was, of course, also the fact that he had not even wanted to see her. That, amongst all the other fears and doubts, rested the heaviest on her shoulders.

-AP-

Samantha could hardly believe how much time had passed. Everything had happened so fast, she felt like she'd gotten off the train only an hour ago, but already dusk was approaching.

They landed in an alley in a residential part of town—walking distance from her parents' house, she noticed—and Tucker offered to bring Samantha the rest of the way while Valerie de-activated her ghost hunting gear. Eager to escape the over-bearing girl's presence, Samantha readily agreed. For the second time that day she found herself flying, supported uncomfortably from her arms, and was immediately much more at ease than she had been clinging to Valerie.

"I have to make us invisible and intangible so no one sees us go in… I guess this might feel a little weird," Tucker warned her. And it was pretty weird. She'd felt the same way briefly when the Dream Seer had pulled her through a solid door back at the Academy, though at the time she hadn't known what was happening. Suddenly she couldn't feel the wind anymore, and it didn't hurt that Tucker was gripping her arms so: she was weightless.

"Wow," she breathed, "This is cool."

"Thanks," Tucker said, sounding oddly strained, "I think I can keep it up until we get inside, but sorry in advance if you get stuck in the wall or something."

Assuming (perhaps hoping) that he was joking, Samantha ignored his comment and asked "Where are we going, anyway?"

"Right up here, actually," Tucker said, and she knew what he meant right off the bat. She had imagined the trio of ghost-hunters having some sort of secret headquarters, but this place was anything but subtle. Despite having once been an ordinary house, the top half had been completely altered by a large, circular, and mostly steel structure with what looked like a huge satellite tower on top. An unlit, neon sign almost half the length of the building proclaimed "FENTON WORKS".

_Fenton_… Samantha thought to herself, wracking her brain. Tucker's last named was _Foley_. And it wasn't Valerie's either. But of course, she'd been pretty dumb to think that his name was really _Danny Phantom_. She obviously didn't know much about that nerd stuff, but she was aware that super hero types always had secret identities. That meant that this was Danny's house, and she immediately grew wary. Tucker seemed to think it was all right to bring her along, but what would Danny think?

Danny Fenton. Why hadn't she remembered that? Why couldn't she, even now as she thought about it, remember it? What was the difference between Danny Phantom and Danny Fenton?

"Here goes nothing," said Tucker. She felt nothing as he pulled them through the wall at the second story of the house. She closed her eyes, expecting at any moment to feel wood and drywall jutting suddenly through her body. But then her feet touched the ground. She opened her eyes and found herself (completely) in a hallway so normal looking she could hardly believe it belonged to the bizarre house she'd seen outside. So, she decided, Tucker _had _been joking.

But he looked a little _too _relieved to have gotten them both inside. He was standing on the ground for once, bent over with his hands on his knees and panting. But he had a silly smile on his face, the sort he'd had when telling Valerie about defeating the bear-cat ghost. He looked up at Samantha and threw her a wink. "Quite a workout," he said.

Samantha glared severely and asked, "Are you suggesting I am _overweight_?"

Looking stricken, Tucker hurriedly rectified, "No, no! I only meant it's hard for me to—you're totally skinny—I mean, not _too _skinny—" He was surprised (pleasantly so) when she giggled.

"I was _joking_," she assured him, "I think all the stuff you can do is pretty awesome."

"Really?" he wondered, perking up, "Well there's all sorts of things I could show you then, maybe if sometime you wanna—"

"I _thought _I heard you guys up here," Valerie interrupted. She was standing at the top of the stairs at the end of the hall, one hand on the rail and one hand planted firmly on her hip. She didn't look happy, but Samantha hadn't really expected her to.

She also hadn't expected her to be so… _pretty_. She'd been able to tell Valerie had a nice face through her mask, and obviously she was in killer shape, but for some reason that mask and the battle suit seemed more normal on Valerie than what she was behind the armor. She was tall and lean, though still annoyingly curvy, and had flawless, dark skin. Her face was round with high cheekbones, and she kept her hair in thick cornrows that kind of reminded Samantha how Ashley, a girl she'd used to hang out with back at the Academy, had worn hers. But Ashley's hair had extended all the way down her back, while Valerie's was cut off right at the base of her neck. It made her seem older and more serious, and Samantha found herself feeling jealous of the girl for the _n_th time, not to mention unhappy about her own lengthy locks.

"I'd hate to interrupt the _flirt _session," she said, "But we really need to go over what just happened."

Both Tucker and Samantha looked embarrassed and edged a few inches away from each other.

"We were _not _flirting," Samantha assured her. Her face felt hot and she knew she was blushing. How annoying. It wasn't even like she _liked _Tucker. She liked Danny. Her heart sank, realizing she'd have to face him again in just moments.

"Whatever," Valerie rolled her eyes, "Just come on, Danny's downstairs fixing up his shoulder." She turned on her heel and went back down the stairs, grumbling to herself, probably about Danny's injury. She really did seem to care about Danny a lot, Samantha reflected. The sinking feeling got heavier.

-AP-

It was strange following Tucker and Valerie down the stairs. Valerie was naturally graceful and descended in a stately sort of way, one hand unnecessarily sliding lightly along the rail. Then went Tucker, still oddly walking, who stomped down them so fast he passed Valerie at the bottom. Every third step or so his foot would slip right through the stair, but this seemed normal enough to him and he ignored it.

Both of them were perfectly at ease, like they went up and down those stairs every day. Samantha had never been in a house with stairs like this before: even her parents' house had had a wider, grander way to get to the upper level, and all of the student staircases at the Academy had been wide enough for ten to ascend shoulder to shoulder. She felt out of place.

Still, as she tentatively stepped down there was an itch in the back of her mind, a little nudge to go ahead and run like Tucker had. Would that have felt more natural? Maybe at some point in her life she had run up and down these stairs so many times that…

But, she told herself, she was an intruder here. Probably an unwelcome one. And probably it was rude to go stomping around the house of some one you'd essentially just met.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs she vaguely noted she'd entered a very normal looking living room, and that Tucker and Valerie had already converged around the couch against the wall furthest from her. Then she remained at the bottom of the stairs, one hand gripping the rail, as if frozen, because sitting between them on the couch was human Danny Fenton, without a shirt on.

At first he did not look up at her, instead focusing entirely on tightening the knot that held a large bandage in place on his shoulder, and she wondered if this was because he didn't want to see her. She found that her heart was racing inside her chest, and strange chills were spilling up and down her spine in a way that wasn't entirely unpleasant. Finally he sighed, pulling his hands away from his handiwork, batting away Valerie's attempts to inspect it herself, and looked up.

For the first moment when their eyes met, the sudden outpouring of emotion from his gaze (now blue, not green) was too much for Samantha to interpret. _Regret, _was the best she could come up with, but before she had even another second to think about it his expression carefully tailored itself into apathy.

It was almost hard for Samantha to equate the boy she'd been shown, the one tantalizingly near in her half-memories, to the one in front of her, who appeared so much older and so much more serious. He had grown, obviously, and was quite tall now and as lean as she'd imagined (though she could all too easily tell how much he'd filled out over the years, and how much physical labor he must have gone through every day to get such killer abs). His face had retained some of its boyish qualities, but had become thinner and more angular over the years, framed now by ink-black hair in desperate need of a trim. The affect to Samantha was that he seemed sort of wild and ageless. She found herself wondering what had happened to them, to all of them.

Her head ached. Her grip on the stair rail weakened and she sat down, hard, on the bottom step. Why, she wondered vaguely, even when she saw Danny now as he truly was, did the image of his ghost self stick out so much more prominently in her mind?

"Sam!" Tucker had flown over to her immediately, and tried to pull her up by the elbows back into a standing position. Tucker, she noted vaguely, was always pretty awkward when he came in physical contact with her. Maybe because he was dead, she thought sadly. Once back on her feet she shoved away Tucker's attempts to get her to lean on him and strode (albeit a bit unsteadily) to where Danny and Valerie had remained. Valerie looked vaguely concerned, and Danny was frozen in a peculiar position, as if he'd stood up suddenly without meaning to and tried to sit back down again at the same time.

"Hello," she said to them.

Valerie rolled her eyes, shoving Danny back down into his seat. "_Hi,_" she said, "I guess I'll be the first to ask what we're all wondering, Princess. What the hell are you doing here?"

_Princess?_ Samantha wondered, narrowing her eyes. She noticed that Tucker was hovering a few inches behind her as if expecting her to fall again and wanting to be there to catch her. She _did _feel like she might fall again, but suddenly his concern was cause for frustration. Just what did he care, anyway? What did _any _of them care?

"Well," she began, ire leaking through her words, "After spending almost three years of my life convinced I was some fashion-obsessed, bubble-headed popularity drone, I thought I'd come back here and give my old life another shot."

To her surprise the first response to that came from Tucker. "Is that why you're dressed so weird?" he asked curiously. Samantha glanced down at her designer jeans and sweater set, wondering what was so strange about them.

"I guess so," she replied, somewhat grudgingly.

"But I thought you went to some ritzy private school out of state," Valerie challenged. "Won't you have to go back soon?"

"No," Samantha snapped, "I dropped out. I'm never going back."

For a moment admiration flashed through Valerie's eyes. "I guess you're serious about this."

Samantha didn't reply. The answer was obvious.

"But what are you going to do now?" Tucker asked. He'd joined the other two on the couch now, leaving Samantha standing on her own before the three of them. She felt uncomfortably like she'd just given a bad audition on 'American Idol'. Tucker was Paula, she thought almost hysterically, because he was obviously willing to give her a chance. She couldn't quite equate some one as pretty (and angry-looking) as Valerie with Randy, but Danny, with his stony glare, was very obviously Simon. Before this she'd always liked the snide Brit, but now she realized that he was actually pretty mean—

_What am I thinking? _She cut her thoughts off abruptly.

She found she had no straight answer to Tucker's question since it was something she'd been asking herself, over and over, from the beginning. "I guess I thought I'd just sort of… pick up where I left off," she said finally, realizing as she said it that it was a lame answer.

For a moment she was relieved of Valerie's stare as the girl turned her gaze instead to Danny. A series of expressions crossed her face when she looked, most of them versions of concern or anxiety. When Danny had nothing to say she took it upon herself.

"I hate to break this to you, Princess," Valerie began, and this time the unwanted moniker really grated Samantha's nerves, "But things have changed around here. A lot. You _can't _just 'pick up' now."

"I _know _things have changed!" Samantha insisted. Not only did she know it, but she _felt _it, as something physical affecting her own body. Watching the three of them together on the couch, even with Danny as withdrawn as he was, it was too… natural. The way Tucker and Danny's shoulders touched ever so slightly, and Valerie had curled her feet under herself like a cat, watching protectively over the other two. Samantha didn't fit into that picture any more.

Could she change that, somehow?

The answer came to her quite suddenly. Whether it was her real reason for coming, for tagging along with this insane group and staying with them, she wasn't sure. She only knew that at that moment, she truly believed what she was saying.

"I want to help you," she realized out loud. "I want to help you protect Amity Park."

-AP-

_This is completely bizarre_… Samantha mused, popping a Dorito into her mouth and wiping her cheesy fingers on the side of her jeans. She was seated on the floor beside the coffee table, hungrily hoarding the bag of chips to herself and washing them down with healthy sips from her can of diet cola. Valerie was stretched out on the floor a few feet away, chewing alternately on the back of a pen and a pop-tart, and glaring studiously down at the spiral notebook in front of her. Danny was still on the couch (with a shirt on now), hunched over a laptop and eating nothing while Tucker floated a safe distance away, staring at the screen awkwardly from his position and occasionally giving Danny instructions. The machine made a strange buzzing sound if he got too close to it.

So far none of them had made any attempt to discuss Samantha's bold statement. Rather, they had broken out the snacks and the computer and begun recounting the night's events. Valerie was taking notes and telling in a very irritated tone of how she had come across Tucker and Samantha earlier that day. Samantha wasn't quite sure what Tucker and Danny were doing but from the sound of it they were trying to add in new data to some kind of 3D simulation.

What was bizarre about it to Samantha was that, despite the subject of conversation, the atmosphere was perfectly casual. The three of them might have been doing their homework.

"And that's when we found you," Valerie finished, exasperated. "Can we please hear what happened up there _now_?"

Danny sighed and sat up a little straighter. He didn't wince, but she knew his shoulder must have hurt when he did so. Through his white t-shirt she could see that his bandage was already darkening red with blood. Before he began talking, she thought for a moment that he might have glanced in her direction. But, she rebuked herself, considering he hadn't looked at her once since the initial confrontation, she had probably just imagined it.

"Well I found out something interesting. That little pixie ghost, the freaky bird from the mall, the big guy who toppled the apartment building…" his fists clenched briefly as he mentioned this, "And a few others… they're all working together. It hasn't been a random influx of attacks at all, it's been planned. We already knew there had to be a portal somewhere, and when Tucker found this one we couldn't have known… but they've all been working together and they've been artificially _keeping the portal open_."

This sounded very dangerous and important to Samantha, but Tucker and Valerie seemed nonplussed at the news.

"Obviously," said Valerie, "We know that from those damn space heaters… but I can't believe _those _are the ones who managed it. We've been fighting them for a while, none of them seem even slightly intelligent enough to—"

"There was another," Danny interrupted grimly, "Who hadn't revealed himself until today, but he's been leading them. And he's probably smart enough to have come up with something like this… if he didn't have help from some one else."

Valerie immediately began taking him more seriously, holding her pen ready to start making a record of Danny's account. Tucker automatically leaned in closer, causing the laptop to _whirr _unhappily, though nobody seemed to notice just then.

"I was invisible when I found them, and kind of surprised to see such a large group—seven total—not to mention the familiar faces. I guess I wasn't all that surprised to see that the portal wasn't just a fluke after all. We knew that the increase in activity was all coming from the same general area, and they've never lasted this long before…" he shook his head, trying to arrange his thoughts. "Anyway, it turns out they've got this lunatic leading them named Chaz."

"Chaz?" Tucker repeated, wrinkling his nose. "How lame."

Valerie rolled her eyes and said, "_Tucker_," in a warning tone.

"I'm just saying," he continued defensively, "That I was expecting something a bit more diabolical for our evil mastermind here, all right?"

Valerie made a sound somewhere between a snort and a snarl, but Samantha noticed that for the first time Danny almost looked as if he were about to smile.

"Chaz," he stated apologetically. "He's totally insane. I think he was some kind of big-shot movie producer when he was alive, and he must have been alive not all that long ago considering some of the references he made to me. _The Matrix_, for one."

"All right!" Tucker grinned approvingly. Valerie shot him a quelling glare.

"Anyway, it was pretty easy getting rid of his cronies in a confined space like that when I'd caught them unawares. Well, mostly easy," he amended, touching his shoulder briefly. "They were all so bent on impressing their leader it was a simple matter of getting them to turn on each other, right? They mostly took care of themselves. I thought I was done with them after that, but then Chaz revealed a some what surprising bit of power. He can multiply himself."

"So can you," Valerie reminded him, one perfect eyebrow raised curiously.

"I know," Danny said tiredly, "Believe me, I was glad for that, though there wasn't a lot of room for _me _in there when there were so many of _him_."

"How many?" Samantha found herself wondering out loud. For the briefest of moments Danny glanced at her, looking irritated before answering.

"I don't know. Thirty? Fifty? Too many." Samantha shivered at the simplicity of his words, pushing her bag of chips away as she found she'd lost her appetite. It was also the first time he had spoken to her directly. …well, almost directly.

"_Fifty?_" Valerie squealed, sitting up abruptly and dropping her pen. "Are you serious? That's… it's impossible! You'd kill yourself trying to get even close to that number."

"Well we're not talking about _me,_ are we?" Danny told her dryly. Everything immediately grew much more serious, an intangible change in the mood that even Samantha was caught up in despite her confusion. Perhaps, she decided, it was unusual for a ghost to be more powerful than Danny. She stared at him wonderingly.

"If he died recently," Valerie insisted logically, "Then there's no way he could be that powerful yet, I don't care how smart he is… it just doesn't happen!"

"I don't know if it's got so much to do with power than just… how he is," Danny said. He briefly described the process through which Chaz had made so many doppelgangers, one stepping out of the other. "I'm not sure he was copying himself so much as… maybe there are just that many of him, and they remain inside each other until they need each other. It's weird, but it wouldn't take nearly as much energy as making actual copies."

_Gross!_ thought Samantha, but Valerie looked oddly relieved. "So you think there's a limit?"

"Oh great," Tucker muttered, "As long as there's _only _fifty of them, we should be fine!"

"Fifty is better than a thousand," Valerie shot back.

"I don't know," Danny interrupted grimly, "Whether he reached his limit in there or not. He didn't have a chance to, really. There could be a thousand for all we know."

"How _did _you get rid of them all, Danny?" Tucker wondered excitedly. Obviously he'd been dying to hear this part of the story all along.

"Luck, really," he admitted. It wasn't modesty, but rather something he honestly believed. "Obviously I multiplied myself right away—only six more. I didn't want to do too many because I'm useless when my power is stretched like that. I didn't know what else to do except attack first. I—that is, all of me—jumped at the first one we saw, but there were so many that in moments each of me was overwhelmed. I used shields mostly to keep them off me, but it started getting a little crazy. Chaz doesn't seem to have much in the way of ghost powers, but he's a cunning fighter. And with so many…" He shrugged, "I held them off for a while, but things started to get pretty desperate. I did the only thing I could think of, even though I knew I'd get caught if it didn't get rid of them all."

Valerie paused in her writing and looked up with an expression of realization. "Your ghostly wail?" she wondered quietly. Danny nodded, looking suddenly apprehensive. And with good reason. Immediately Valerie was on her feet, striding over to the couch in a matter of seconds, where she proceeded to punch Danny (not gently) on his un-injured arm. He didn't appear surprised, and when Valerie then grabbed him around the neck and forced him against the back of the couch (a little more gently this time) Samantha wondered if he was letting her do it or if he was too tired to fend her off.

"You idiot!" Valerie seethed. "You should have waited for us! With you incapacitated like that you could have been captured or _killed_! You should have just gotten out of there!"

"He would have followed me," Danny said calmly, "And Amity does not need fifty of that guy running around the streets. And if you'll let go of me I'll tell you something interesting."

Grudgingly she let go, but sat near enough to him that he was easily within her reach.

"I didn't pass out," he explained. Samantha wasn't sure if he seemed excited or worried about this. "I got dizzy for a moment, but I was still on my feet when it passed. Chaz wasn't. None of them were. After that it was just a matter of sweeping them into the thermos. It's a good thing I started carrying extra…"

"This… this is big," said Tucker, grinning, "That's the first time you've been able to do that without debilitating yourself. Awesome!"

"You couldn't have known that, though," growled Valerie, "You couldn't have known beforehand what would happen."

Danny shrugged, and this time did wince as his hurt shoulder automatically went up and down. "As I said before," he said simply, "Luck."

At this point Samantha felt like her head was spinning. It had been a fairly gripping story, all the more so because of the plain and toneless sort of way he told it, with no dramatic pauses or fancy embellishments. He just stated it all as fact, as something that had really happened. And she knew that she shouldn't be buying into any of it. Okay, so she believed in ghosts now, fine. But this… this was too much.

And yet she knew that she believed it. She believed every word of it, and she was desperate to know more.

"I don't understand," she said slowly, slipping to her feet. There they were, picture-perfect back on the couch again. She was briefly annoyed when the team glanced at her suddenly, looking surprised (Danny quickly looked at his feet ). She knew that once again they'd forgotten she was there. Was all of this really so routine to them? "What does it mean? About the… the portal staying open so long, and the space heaters?"

Both Tucker and Valerie looked to Danny, who was still staring resolutely at the floor, as if waiting for permission to reveal the answer. Again Samantha marveled at this strange development of things—Danny as such as leader figure. Valerie was obviously more willing to hit him (probably for what she thought was his own good) than she was to disobey him.

He gave no signal, but was oddly enough the one to explain. He did not move his head to look at her, but she could tell that every now and then his tired eyes would flicker in her direction.

"The universes, that is our world and the Ghost Zone, are slipping into each other," he said bluntly. "We first saw it happening the night you lost your memory…" He gave her a much longer look at this, a twisted smile that looked more like a grimace. There was an accusation in his eyes she didn't understand, but her blood felt cold from his words. What was the correlation between her accident and what he was saying? Was it her fault, somehow?

"What does that mean?" she snapped, angry at how easily he'd made her feel guilty, and sure that he'd done it on purpose.

"It means," Danny clarified, averting his eyes again, "That the excess amount of ecto-energy caused by all the ghosts that had paraded around for a year or so, as well as the few times Amity Park came in close contact with, was nearly taken over by, or was dragged into the Ghost Zone, as well as the existence of the portal in our basement has all led to the thinning of the barrier between the two worlds, and it's getting thinner all the time. Thin enough that if there's a certain amount of ecto-energy in a one place at one time, it will break, and a portal opens all on its own."

"Which lets more ghosts through," Valerie added unhappily.

"Oh," said Samantha, forgetting to be angry for a moment as she thought about this. "But… but how do you close the portals again?"

"We don't," Tucker explained, sounding cynical but towards his answer, not her question. "They close up on their own. No matter how much ecto-energy builds up in our universe, there is still so much more of our own energy that it eventually dissipates and the barrier between the worlds can re-sustain itself after a few days, tops. It's all more annoying than anything else."

"For now," Valerie grunted.

"For now?" wondered Samantha.

"We've been trying to keep it a secret, that this is happening," Valerie admitted. "From the ghosts for the very reason we saw today: they figured out what was going on and found a way to keep the barrier weakened enough for there to be a portal. Heat energy is from our universe, but by producing it through their own form of energy, they were able to keep the levels of both completely stable in that storage room. With no change in energy the portal would get no bigger or smaller." Then she added angrily, "I can't _believe _they figured that out."

"I don't think Chaz is the one who did," Danny said suddenly, cryptically. He didn't offer any more explanation, and the other two didn't press him. Despite their wariness of Samantha, she noticed that it seemed a relief to them to be explaining these things to some one else for a change. It was probably difficult, she thought, to keep such a heavy secret.

"And it totally sucks that they did," Valerie lamented, "and not just because we'll be dealing with a lot more of them. Long-lasting portals will only speed of the process we've been tracking since Jazz," (she shot an apologetic look towards Danny, who had stiffened at the name but said nothing), "first figured it out."

"Each universe," Tucker picked up, "Has a certain amount of energy that before it was impossible to add or subtract to, or change in any way." For a moment Samantha thought wildly of her physics class back at the Academy. She could hardly draw a connection between that part of her life and where she was now. "But if this keeps up," Tucker was saying, "Then the total amount of energy from each universe will be added to each other, completely disrupting the otherwise natural processes of the worlds, creating more barrier breaches, pouring in more alien energy still… Now ghosts use ghost energy, and we," he checked himself with a small sigh, saying, "That is _you _need this universe's energy. When the two have combined completely we're not sure any of us will be able to use any of it. And even if we could, the exposure to all of the alien energy might prove… well, not good."

"You mean… you don't think anyone will survive?" Samantha breathed. She felt light-headed, or perhaps like she was dreaming. Was she really standing here in this average living room, Dorito grease on her fingers, discovering how the universe was going to end?

Danny looked more exhausted then ever. His eyes were closed and his jaw was set. He was tensed as if ready to bolt from the room, whatever he could to escape what Valerie said next.

"Not necessarily…" She said. And both she and Tucker, as if unable to help themselves, eyed Danny worriedly.

Of course, Samantha realized. She hadn't particularly understood a lot of what they had told her, but she was able to work out this much. If the two worlds combined, who else could survive but some one who was essentially _of_ both worlds?

Who else could survive but Danny Phantom?

To be continued…

Post A/N: Blah. I hate this chapter. I am certain it was still irritatingly unclear, but hopefully everything will make a bit more sense as the story goes on. This is the last straight-out explanation on the subject you're going to get, anyway, and keep in mind that Samantha's confused too. I thank any of you that have come back after the long break with all my heart, and welcome anyone who's just jumped in!

(Super thanks to: KHFREAK14, CharmedNightSkye, bluename, kpfan72491, Kovva, cariadiorarua, NixedFreedom, musicality, YumeTakato, Orlandoroxmysox, and Lunar Kasumi!)

NEXT TIME: The fate of the Fentons (and possibly Tucker) is revealed!


	6. Feelings

Author's Note: Sorry if there's any weirdness with the formatting here. I'm in the middle of a transition period between my skeezy old Dell PC (equipped with a somewhat dysfunctional Windows XP) and my brand new, shiny Dell laptop, which has Windows Vista. As far as I can tell, Vista is (to use a favorite word of my favorite robot) rubbish. If something as simple as Microsoft Word is confusing then it is not a good system, and that's all I have to say about that. Although there is a really silly game called 'Penguins!' (exclamation point included) that's a pretty good way to not think about anything.

Enter ze teen angst!

Obligatory meaningful song lyrics:_F__eelings, for all my life I__'ll feel it__I wish I'd never met you__You'll make me sick a__gain__Feelings, oh-oh feelings o__f hate on my mind_

_--The Offspring_

Remembering Amity

Chapter 6: Feelings

The room was entirely dark. Samantha hadn't even bothered looking for a light switch. Rather she'd slid down the length of the door after closing it behind her and pulled her knees to her chest as if she were cold or scared. In some ways, she was both, as well as lonely. There was no sense in turning on the light, she thought, since actually seeing the emptiness of the disused bedroom could only be more depressing.

Where was Jazz anyway? she wondered briefly before her thoughts were quickly swept towards other things.

I wish Danny would look at me… she found herself thinking. This thought was not so easy to banish, it being concerned with the topic every cell in her brain and body was focused on. Danny. There was some sort of connection between them—there _had _to be.

Or at least, there had to have been before her accident, during which she may or may not have accidentally doomed the entire world to a deadly energy crisis. But that was stupid. There's no way she could be responsible for something so hugely important. Besides, she continued, reasoning herself into a calmer state of mind, if she had he would have just come out and accused her. Obviously he had no concern towards her feelings anyway.

And Tucker and Valerie… Tucker hadn't seemed mad with her at all. In fact, he seemed pretty okay with going along with her own plan of reasserting herself back into their lives. He seemed to want to be her friend again. Valerie had been upset with her, but as far as she could tell only because she was in love with Danny or something, and didn't want someone who upset him as much as Samantha did sticking around.

She let out a long breath and curled up into an even tighter position. Obviously they had kicked her out of the conversation so they could talk about what they were going to do with her. Maybe they were talking about what she'd done to make Danny hate her. Maybe if she knew that, she could apologize properly. Even if he wouldn't ever love her, she wasn't sure how long she could last knowing that he didn't even forgive her.

Feeling remarkably like a little kid sneakily forgoing her bedtime, she pulled the door open as quietly as she could and tip-toed down the hall.

-AP-

When Valerie came back from showing Samantha to Jazz's old room, she noticed that Danny had finally relaxed. He lay back on the couch with his eyes closed and the tension had left his body. She watched as Tucker, who was floating a few feet away, made a longing sort of reach toward the laptop which still sat open on the coffee table.

"Don't," she warned gently. "We can't afford another one."

He flinched, looking sheepish, before something occurred to him. "Sam can," he said. "Sam can afford lots."

"I doubt Sam is going to be donating money to our little team here any time soon…" Valerie replied, thinking of the other girl's sour expression when they'd insisted she go up to bed, citing her obvious exhaustion. It had been apparent that Samantha knew they just wanted some time to talk amongst themselves, predominantly about her, but Valerie didn't particularly care if she was offended.

"Are you sure this is okay, Danny?" she asked, sitting down beside him. "I mean, she can totally come stay at my place. My dad won't mind…"

"It's fine," he said, not opening his eyes. "You guys don't have all that much space as it is, and besides she's—" he cut himself off abruptly, but his friends knew him well enough to guess what he was getting at.

"Your responsibility?" asked Tucker. "Danny, you know that it wasn't—"

"Please," interrupted Danny quietly, opening his eyes and trying to give his friend the most sincere look possible, "She can stay here. It's fine."

There was an awkward pause in which each boy seemed lost in his own thoughts. Tucker, caught in one of the rare moments he dropped his cheerful demeanor, was completely unreadable. But Valerie recognized the expression on Danny's face all too easily: he was feeling guiltyand trying not to show it because he knew it made her upset. Annoyed despite his efforts, she changed the subject a little more forcefully than was necessary. "Let's get back to the important stuff, okay? Like how we let this ghost group's little scheme go on for _way _too long. If Tucker hadn't come with me that one time we might never have found their portal…"

"Yeah, that's a little scary," Tucker agreed, "How did they figure out how to keep it hidden from you like that?"

Danny shrugged, "Ghosts can always sense the portals, right? Because it's unnatural for them to be here and they're attracted towards their real environment, the Ghost Zone. The only reason I can sense portals is because of the energy disruption, and the energy surrounding that portal was so perfectly stable… it wasn't until I was almost directly under it that I felt anything at all."

"But how did they figure that out?" Valerie frowned. "How do they know so much about the powers of a halfa, unless… look, Danny, I know you didn't give us the whole story before. You obviously know more about this Chaz guy than you let on. What else happened?"

Danny seemed completely unperturbed at Valerie's ability to read him. He opened his mouth to say something, yawned instead, and finally explained, "Well I've got a pretty good idea about how all this started. I mean, once we figured out that the increased activity was coming from the same place it became a definite possibility that somebody, somewhere, was planning something. I think that somebody is Vlad."

Valerie made a disgusted noise while Tucker crowed, "Ah hah! Great, just great! Vlad Plasmius _again_! Anyone sensing a trend with this guy?"

"How do you know?" asked Valerie.

"Because…" He knew he owed them the answer, but for a moment he found his voice was sticking in his throat. He briefly wondered if he could get around telling them this particular bit of information, before deciding it was more important that they knew the whole truth. He said, "Because Chaz mentioned _Jazz_."

Well, maybe not the _whole _truth. They didn't need to know how the ghost had used his sister to taunt him, and how it had distracted him at a rather crucial time.

Realization dawned on Tucker and Valerie immediately. They knew that Danny's theory had to be correct, and what's more that they were probably _meant_ to know that Vlad had been behind it what with such an obvious hint, but for his benefit Valerie offered an alternative.

"You don't know that that means Vlad is involved," she said as sensibly as she could. "Lots of ghosts know both of your identities. He could have just been trying to confuse you."

_He's confused me, all right_… Danny thought sourly. He shivered, recalling the blank sort of horror that had gripped him when the sly ghost invoked his sister's name. God, he _missed_ her. As calmly as he could he tried to explain to his friends, "No. No… the way he said it… no, I really think he'd seen her."

"Well then we're stuck, aren't we?" Tucker cut in, his voice uncharacteristically snappish and his eyes focused firmly on the floor. Valerie moved to stand beside him, placing one hand on his shoulder and eyeing him sympathetically. After a moment they both looked up, looking to Danny. As always, as was the unspoken agreement between the three of them, it was his call.

"We're stuck," he agreed firmly, his tired eyes gleaming with irritation. "Vlad still has us in check. Until this stupid hostage game of his ends we can't _directly_ confront him."

"Not _directly_…" Valerie prompted.

"What's the plan?" asked Tucker. But Danny only shook his head.

"I have no idea," he admitted. "Not yet, anyway. I think first and foremost we need to figure out what he's really trying to—"

"What happened to Jazz?" a voice asked softly from the top of the stairs. Three pairs of eyes, none of them expressing any particular amount of surprise to discover an eavesdropper, looked up to where Samantha stood awkwardly, fingers alternately loosening and tightening around the stair rail.

"Is Jazz the hostage?" she prompted, trying to keep her voice level. "She's not… I mean, she wasn't—she's not _dead _is she?"

Danny stood up. For a moment he looked as if he actually might say something to Samantha. Then, instead, he walked directly to the front door and left, slamming it behind him in a way that just might have been unintentional. As Samantha's eyes followed his exit, she knew that her heart might as well have been ripped out and thrown after him. How could she be so utterly insensitive? So what if Danny had been a jerk to her since she'd gotten there? Did any of that matter if Jazz was… Just to come out and say it like that… of course that would upset Danny… but it upset her too, didn't it? Her head was spinning too much for her to know. Jazz. Jasmine Fenton.

A fuzzy sort of picture appeared in her mind. Jazz had been a vibrant and intelligent young woman with few friends, but desperately loyal to the ones she had. Sometimes she would drive Samantha home from school, or offer to help with homework… she was always so worried about Danny… the more she thought about it, the clearer her memories regarding Jazz became, and the more impossible it seemed that she was gone forever.

"Sam… _Sam!_" She was jolted from her thoughts as icy fingertips gripped her shoulders, giving her a good shake and alerting her back to reality. Tucker watched her with startlingly serious eyes.

"Jazz is not dead," he clarified, sounding for the first time as if he might be angry. There was no anger in his expression, however, only sadness. This was such bizarre behavior for Tucker that it took Samantha a moment to put his sentence together. Her relief was short-lived.

"She's a traitor," said Tucker flatly, "_Jazz is working for Vlad_."

-AP-

Valerie left Tucker to do the explaining. It was important to get a head start on following Danny. He tended to seek particularly dangerous situations when he needed to let some frustration out and he was already injured as it was… if she caught up to him in time maybe she could persuade him to sit down and talk it out with her instead.

Unlikely.

She herself was fuming, and all of her anger was aimed with remarkable clarity at Samantha. Before the accident, Valerie had never particularly liked Sam. But nor had she not liked her. She'd admired her conviction, and her individuality, and reckoned that she must be a pretty okay person to be held in such high esteem by Danny. And she'd been annoyed at her possessiveness of Danny, and put off by the often unmasked hostility the other girl geared toward her when she tried to get close to him.

All of those feelings didn't matter anymore, though, since the accident happened. Valerie knew she shouldn't blame Samantha. It was after all, just that: an accident. And due to the circumstances that followed she hadn't even gotten the chance to learn about Danny. She couldn't possibly know what she'd done to him, what she'd been continuously doing to him for almost three years. She couldn't know that because of her, he had become something other than himself.

Even so, Valerie didn't think she could ever forgive her.

As soon as she was out the door she leapt nimbly from the porch and prepared to activate her jet sled, only to realize that Danny had not, as she thought, disappeared off into the night sky seeking a nasty opponent, but was in fact sitting sullenly on the bottom step. She'd practically jumped right over his head.

"Sorry," he murmured, guessing what she had been about to do. "I thought about it, but I'm really just too tired for it right now."

"Good," said Valerie, attempting a smile, "'Cause so am I." She sat down right beside him, so close they were touching. It wasn't an awkward gesture, nor was it a romantic one. Well, she thought with a bitterness that was far too familiar at this point to bother with, it might have been. But just now, she only meant to offer what comfort she could.

There was a short silence during which she laid her head on his shoulder. He said, "I have no idea what I'm doing."

And she said, "I know. It's okay.

-AP-

"Traitor?" Samantha repeated. That she hadn't expected. Feverishly she sifted through her most recently recovered memories, thinking of all that she'd known about Jazz, all she could recall her having said or done… there was nothing. Nothing that would indicate she would betray her friends, and certainly not her brother. Not in a way that sounded so serious.

"Who's Vlad?" she asked finally, thinking that if she was going to understand this situation, and particularly what Danny was feeling about, she better know just what was going on.

Tucker's jaw actually dropped. "You've got to be kidding me. You really don't remember Vlad?"

She remained silent, which he took as his cue to continue, growing louder and more hysterical as he went on. "Vlad. Vlad Masters, or really what we're talking here, Vlad _Plasmius_? He's like the richest guy in the country! And the evilest. He's Danny's arch-enemy, for Pete's sake! He's always got some scheme or another up his sleeve, has tried to kill us on multiple occasions, and me personally at least once, sort of, and when he's not doing that he's trying to recruit Danny to the DARK SIDE, and—"

"Tucker," Samantha cut him off sharply, "Shut up. I don't, as it turns out, remember this Vlad guy. You're acting like I chose not to."

He gawked, realizing too late that worrying about Danny was no reason to take it out on Sam. Somewhere in the back of his mind he realized that it was kind of nice, worrying about Danny _and _Sam again. Mostly he just felt awful.

"Sam, I—"

"Shut up," she said again. "I can't stand it. You're all acting like I should know how to act and what to say and get mad at me when I don't do anything right! Well, guess what! I _don't _know anything, and I _can't _do anything right, and it's _not my fault_!" She stormed up the last few stairs and began down the hallway, presumably back to Jazz's room. She came to a quick decision before she got there, turned around, and hollered, "If you can't deal with it then I'll leave tomorrow!"

She slammed the bedroom door behind her, leaving Tucker alone on the stairs. He sat down. Moments later, without meaning to, he sank through the floor, right up to the middle of his chest.

"Damn," he said miserably.

-AP-

She didn't remember falling asleep, and so she was surprised when she woke up suddenly, tangled in soft pink sheets and squinting her eyes at the sun streaming through a pink-curtained window.

_I'm having a nightmare_… she thought, gazing at her surroundings with growing horror. Was _anything _not pink? This cheery, over-frilled, pretty-princess room was just the sort of thing her parents had forced upon her until she was old enough to demand a space in which she actually felt comfortable. And that… that was the first thing she remembered of her younger childhood. For a moment she felt herself smile, before recalling the dregs of the dream she'd been having. She rarely remembered her dreams at all, and this one was fading fast. When she focused very hard all she could come up with was a certain amount of emotion—something that felt like _waiting_—and the fact that it had been about Danny. Danny _Phantom. _Once again the half ghost permeated her subconscious… would she ever know why? She groaned as she remembered also the events of the night before: learning about the end of the universe, the sort-of fight with Danny, the way anything she said made him so annoyed or upset…

"What am I doing here?" she moaned softly to herself, hugging her knees. Her voice was scratchy. She cleared her throat, and that helped a little. She noted that she must have gotten hot during the night and wriggled out of her sweater. It was wadded up partially under her pillow, she saw, the lavender clashing ridiculously with the hot pink sheets, and probably ruined. Her bag was left forgotten at her parents' house. She would have to go get it today. Maybe she wouldn't come back afterwards.

Also, she decided as she became more and more awake, _something _was burning.

She jumped out of the bed, pulling her sweater on over her head as she moved, and dashed out into the hall. She couldn't see any smoke, no charred walls or other remnants of the crazy ghost-related explosion she was imagining. It didn't even occur to her that the house could just be on fire (though that wasn't quite it either).

"Hello?" she called. No answer. "Hello!" she said, louder. "I think something's burning!"

Nothing. How late did these people sleep anyway? Exasperated, she moved quickly to the nearest door and pulled it open.

And immediately forgot all about the house burning down. This was another bedroom, as strange as Jazz's though in a different way. It was an absolute mess. In the center a twin-sized bed was unmade and showed signs of an uneasy sleeper—the sheets were more tangled than hers had been even. The walls were oddly blank for a teenager's room: no posters or magazine cut-outs proclaiming favorite bands or movies, or even a calendar, though there were a few print-out charts pinned up with plain thumb tacks.

It was impossible to get to the charts to see what they described. Around the bed there was a little over a foot of bare floor, and the rest of the room was covered in papers. _Covered_. They crumpled beneath her feet as she stepped further into the room and she wondered how Danny (this couldn't be anyone else's room) managed to keep from doing the same.

Then she remembered that obviously Danny didn't really have to step on _anything_.

In the corner a plastic desk had an old computer on it. An equally ancient printer was chugging out what looked like another chart, making such a racket Samantha mentally likened it to an old man with a hacking cough.

She crouched down and selected a sheet at random, trying to understand why or how someone could live like this. It was filled from top to bottom with figures. Each number was a whole line long (and the font was small) and ended in "…". And they were all extensive decimals too. Things like "0.00003820273648492…" They'd just reviewed scientific notation in her chemistry class back at school and she wondered why anyone would bother writing out the whole number like that, as if each tiniest increment was important.

"Gooood morning!" came a cheerful greeting from behind her. She gave a small yelp and dropped the paper guiltily. She turned to see Tucker floating in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest and a smirk planted firmly on his face. "Careful," he warned, "Believe it or not all this stuff _is _actually organized."

Samantha rolled her eyes and tossed her hair to show that she could care less about anything that Danny thought important enough to organize, and strode to the door. She felt only a little bad about crumpling more of the papers beneath her feet. "Where's Danny?" she asked.

"School," said Tucker as if that should have been obvious. "Not all of us are drop-outs like you," he added with a grin.

"You didn't go to school yesterday," Samantha pointed out sensibly as she followed him out into the hall. Tucker closed the door behind them.

"_I _personally never go to school," he informed her, "And yesterday was kind of important so Danny and Val skipped."

"They must have to do that a lot," Samantha realized. Tucker shrugged, for a moment allowing himself to look a little unhappy.

"Of course," he said, "They both already have to repeat at least part of their senior year. It sucks, but what can you do? You can't leave the town hanging on the brink of destruction to go listen to Lancer rant about _Frankenstein_." He laughed, probably remembering some quirk or another about the zealous teacher, but Samantha became lost in thought. Danny and Valerie managed to save the town on a regular basis _and _still keep up with school? Well, obviously not keep up, but they were trying. How could they stand to work themselves that hard?

"Anyway," said Tucker, abruptly changing the subject, "The reason I came to get you is because I made you breakfast!" They had reached the living room by now, and she followed him through a doorway that led to the kitchen. Again she was struck by how normal it was, in a house of ghost hunters. A round table was set elaborately for one: a glass of orange juice, a bowl of fresh strawberries, a sliced orange, and a heaping plate of pancakes, all of them slightly charred looking. Immediately she realized where the burning smell had come from.

"Wow…" she breathed. She started when Tucker grabbed her hand, his touch freezing, and led her to the chair.

"If it were me," he said lightly, "I would have gone for bacon and eggs. But I figured you wouldn't appreciate that, so I tried to remember my mom's pancake recipe… I think they're a little crispy..."

"They're great," said Samantha immediately. She was having a hard time speaking, and could only look at the food before her in wonder despite how hungry she was.

"…they're getting cold," Tucker warned after a small awkward silence. He'd seated himself in a chair across from her, putting one elbow on the table and leaning his face on one grey-ish hand.

Immediately she picked up her knife and fork and cut into the top pancake. After retrieving a sizeable piece she raised it to her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. An interesting series of expressions crossed her face before, with an effort, she swallowed. "Wow," she said again, "It's… it's really good."

"They suck, don't they?" Tucker clarified, his face falling.

"Yeah," Samantha agreed, laughing. "But I really, _really _appreciate it." Tucker had been the only one who'd tried to show her any kindness since she'd gotten to Amity Park . Even after chewing him out the night before he'd gone to all this trouble for her. She would have been surprised if he'd wanted to talk to her at all, and this was just too much.

He shrugged, looking suddenly modest. "Hey, whatever. I knew you'd be hungry, you didn't eat much yesterday… Val's an adrenaline machine no matter what, and Danny usually just forgets, so it's not like there was anything available."

Samantha gladly moved onto the bowl of strawberries. She popped one into her mouth and found it to be sweet and refreshing, washing away the bitter remnants of the failed pancakes. "What about you?" she asked.

"Me? I don't have to eat. Just another perk of being a ghost, I guess…" he said with a sigh. Samantha immediately regretted asking the question, recalling how much Tucker had loved food. But now that the topic had been drawn up again she was too curious to let it go.

"Please tell me what happened to you," she said quietly.

"Oh yeah," he said, "I keep forgetting you don't know. You probably thought I was dead this whole time."

"_Aren't you_?" Samantha asked, intrigued.

"Well, no," Tucker explained uncomfortably. "Not really. I mean, I'm pretty sure I would _notice _if I was really dead. I mean, Danny would definitely notice. So no, I'm not dead. I'm a ghost."

Samantha was working her way through the orange now, trying to keep her hands and eyes occupied since Tucker was obviously nervous about telling this story, but she looked up when he said that. "I don't get it. What's the difference?"

"The difference is I'm not dead," he said, and then seeing that this answer was equally as frustrating he went on, "Remember Vlad? It's not unusual for us to have a falling out with him now and then. You've been there for—I _know _you don't remember, okay? That's why I'm telling you. You've been there for more than a few. The guy is just obsessed with power. That's one of the reasons he wants to have Danny on his side so badly."

"Is Danny, um, really powerful?" Samantha asked, already sort of knowing the answer.

"Hell _yeah_!" Tucker replied, looking pleased. "I mean it sort of goes with being a half ghost, but we figured out a long time ago that Danny's powers surpass Vlad's like you wouldn't… the only problem is that Vlad's been a halfa for so much longer that his powers are more developed. He can still best Danny one-on-one, most of the time anyway."

Samantha nodded that she understood. "But what did he do to _you_?"

"Well, he—don't freak out, okay? It's kind of weird. But he sort of… ripped my ghost from my body."

"_What_?" Samantha sputtered. "Your _ghost_?"

"What you're looking at," explained Tucker bitterly, with a sweeping mock grand gesture. "He snuck up on me with gloves… Danny said they were actually an invention of his father's for 'grabbing' ghosts, but Vlad must have done something to them because there's no way Mr. Fenton could think up something so, well, evil. And he's thought of some crazy stuff before, let me tell you. But the point is, now Vlad's got my body."

"That's the hostage you were talking about last night," Samantha realized. She felt her arms and the back of her neck prickle with goosebumps. "What does he… I mean, does he do anything with it—you—it?"

"We don't know," Tucker said dryly, "But it's definitely alive because right now I'm not completely dead. We're pretty sure I can get back inside, and believe me, we've tried to get it back a whole bunch of times. For now Vlad is just using it to keep us from messing with him."

"I don't believe it," Samantha said dazedly.

Tucker frowned. "Well I don't know how I can prove it to you—we can't very well march into Vlad's headquarters or I'd show you my body. Maybe I can—"

"No," interrupted Samantha, "I mean I seriously can't believe this is happening to me. To you! I mean, does everyone think you're dead? And you're just going around fighting ghosts and protecting everyone else while your own life wastes away, with your body locked away in some maniac's prison—"

"It's more of a castle, actually…" Tucker put in gently.

"How can you stand it!?" Samantha cried. She'd stood up at this point, food forgotten, and was leaning over the table to stare directly in his eyes. Tucker, now quite taken aback, found it hard to meet her blazing stare.

"I… I don't know," he began, staring at the table top and searching for words, "I just… I don't know, Sam. We, that is, Danny and Val and I, don't really talk about it. It's easier not to think about it too much."

She abruptly sat back down and crossed her arms, still glaring at him but with a gaze somewhat softer than before. Tucker found he felt bad for upsetting Samantha, and then amazed that this was so. Considering the large amount of self-pity he carried inside, he would have thought that such an outright display of sympathy from someone else would have made him feel better. Instead, watching her trying very hard not to burst out with another angry comment on his behalf, he just felt guilty. Something about this, he noted, was interesting, but for now he would go with the usual fallback of just not thinking about it.

-AP-

Granted, just about every pair of eyes was focused on the second hand of the clock on the wall (which ticked away the moments left of class with an excruciating slowness only those waiting for lunchtime can understand), but none were quite as intense as Danny's. It was fourth period chemistry, one of the three classes he had managed to keep up a regular attendance in (and with a C average, to boot!), and with any luck would _not _have to repeat the following year. There was certain smugness in his expression as he watched the seconds count away, as if he took each little motion of the clock hands as an accolade to his presence in school.

But he was also quite impatient because he had decided at some point during the period (perhaps right after he'd accidentally phased through the test tube of hydrochloric acid he'd been holding) that he wanted to take a nap. Forty-five minutes of lunch and then forty-five minutes of gym (which he rarely, if ever, attended anymore) would give him plenty of time to fly home, sleep, and get back in time for World Lit. sixth period.

The bell rang, shrilly proclaiming his freedom. He leapt from his seat and was out the door before anyone else. Without thinking about it his feet took him to Valerie's locker, though it was another minute or two before she showed up there herself.

"You look… excited," she observed, giving him an odd look and shoving her morning books into her lock. Around them was the usual chaos of everyone leaving their classrooms, opening and closing lockers, and generally streaming towards the cafeteria or the exits. It was a loud, boisterous time of day, and no one paid any mind to the two rather reclusive seniors who, in turn, rarely paid any attention to anyone else.

"Not really," said Danny, "I just thought I'd go home for a little bit. Wanna come with?"

"I can't," Valerie sighed. "I have to make up the calc. test I missed yesterday."

"Ouch," Danny said sympathetically. "Good luck. See you in Lit?" He turned to go, but she stopped him with a question that sounded, perhaps, a bit too casual.

"Danny… you're not just going so you can see Sam, right?"

He froze, then his posture drooped as whatever emotion Valerie had interpreted as excitement seemed to leave him all at once. His answer was simple and expressionless.

"No, I'm not."

To be continued…

Post A/N: I ended this sooner and more abruptly than I intended, but let's face it, I'm behind once again and this needed to get out. I was also tired (my attention span is shorter than the average inch-worm) of Sam and Tucker sitting around talking, although there needs to be a bit more of that in the next chapter. …which will hopefully be up soon!

(Super thanks to bluename, cariadiorarua, Girl of the Graveyard, wondergirl101, CharmedNightSkye, Twilight-Phantom66, YumeTakato, Lunar Kasumi, kpfan72491, Musicallity, and Chaos Dragon!!)

NEXT TIME: A trip to the Manson Mansion (heh) goes awry!


	7. Unsettled

Author's Note: I could go on and on about why this took me so long… (most of it has to do with work and _Harry Potter _preoccupation…) but I won't bore you with the long story. Obviously it's been far too long and I am really, really sorry to anyone I left hanging. I'd say "It won't happen again!" but I won't, because I'd probably be lying.

To anyone who is following along with what's happening in the series now: Just another reminder of how AU this story is, and how AU it's going to continue to be. Forgive me for all my intentional and un-intentional infractions. Plzkthx.

And finally, a note to all who read the preview for chapter seven: don't necessarily skip over that bit this time around; it's got a few fun extensions!

Obligatory meaningful song lyrics:

_Look at me and tell me who I am  
Why I am, what I am  
Call me a fool and it's true, I am  
I don't know who I am_

--from _Jekyll and Hyde _

Remembering Amity

Chapter 7: Unsettled

She was making her usual rounds. An electronic clipboard rested under one arm, the pen behind one ear keeping her hair out of her eyes. It was a little earlier in the day that she usually did this, but she had plans for the evening: recalibrating the latest ecto-ray produced from the weapons lab. It was absolutely frustrating sometimes how many people were employed by the lab these days, especially since half of them hardly knew what they were doing. Sometimes she wondered where Vlad came up with them.

She turned a corner and abruptly ran into one such a person—an intern as she recognized the boy to be from his blue hazmat. There were so many people they needed to be _color-coded _now, she was reminded, and she looked down on him where he'd fallen on the floor with distaste. He was probably around her own age, if not a little older.

"Fu—" he began, rubbing his head, before looking up and realizing just who he'd decided to crash into. His word immediately changed to, "—Fenton! I mean, _Ms _Fenton!" He jumped to his feet, still rubbing his head. Jazz gathered she had accidentally whacked him with her clipboard.

"I—I'm sorry," he stuttered, "I wasn't watching where I was going, I was being a total idiot, I'm sorry—!"

For a moment Jazz just stared at him, not bothering to take in any of his hasty apology. How has it gotten to the point where we take on interns, anyway? she wondered. What sort of school requires its students to intern for the forces of _evil_, for God's sake?

"Um…" the boy was saying now. He was breaking a sweat, obviously dying to get out of there but unsure if he was allowed to leave.

"Don't worry about it," Jazz told him, waving him off in a quick, careless gesture. Caught in her own musings, she didn't notice how pathetically relieved he was to be let so easily off the hook. Later he would tell his fellow interns about the encounter, and they would all be very impressed.

Jazz continued on her way. She had already supervised the weapons lab and the testing chamber and checked in on the research labs and made sure the ghost portal was stable. There was only one thing left for her to do, and it was her least favorite part. Some days she would do it first to get it over with, and other days she would do it last to put it off for as long as possible. Today it had been the latter.

At the end of one of the long metal hallways, three armed guards were positioned around an airlock. Each of them was about twice as big as she was and dressed in heavy, black, bulletproof material, with eye shields that kept most of their faces hidden from view. Overall the effect would have been more intimidating if one of them wasn't slumped against the wall, fast asleep, while the other two were engaged in a fierce thumb war.

They didn't notice her until she was two feet in front of them and cleared her throat.

"Ahem."

They snapped to attention, the one who had been napping only a few seconds later than his comrades.

"I assume," she said sternly, looking up into the eyes she knew they were averting even though they were hidden, "you felt the area was secure enough to take a short break?"

"Very short, ma'am," said one abruptly.

"Right," she said, narrowing her eyes. The guards swallowed. "Well let's make sure it doesn't happen again or we'll find someone more concerned about their job to guard this door."

The guards swallowed again.

She pushed through them and stood in front of the door. There was a lock on it that required a pass key and a code. Her key card was on an extendible cord that latched on her belt. She pulled it out swiftly and ran it through the lock before letting it snap back. Then she punched in the code, which she herself had chosen. It was the date of her parents' anniversary.

With a hiss of hydraulics the heavy doors parted, revealing a short hallway that opened into a room that was very different looking from the rest of the lab. The walls were normal drywall instead of metal or concrete and they were painted—a shade of green so light it looked white.

It looked, for all intents and purposes, like a hospital room. Except without a window, a TV, or a chair for visitors. In the center was a large adjustable bed with metal sidebars, and surrounding it in a fashion that was, perhaps, a little more slapdash than hospital regulations would have allowed, was a vast array of machines which were flashing and beeping in ways that apparently assured the person in the bed was still alive. The patient was attached to these machines via various tubes and wires and sensors stuck all about his person.

Jazz did not look at him. She strode over to one of the machines and hit a button on the side. It readily churned out a lengthy strip of paper. She glanced over the figures, expecting no anomalies. Despite the thrown-together appearance of the equipment it was the very best for keeping some one alive and healthy.

His heart rate was a little too fast, she noticed with a frown. And his temperature had apparently spiked the night before and wasn't quite under control yet. She pulled the pen out from behind her ear and made a few jerky notes on her clipboard, trying to stay calm and professional while her insides began to churn with panic.

Eventually, imminently, her gaze was drawn to the boy in the bed. Most of the time she avoided looking at him because seeing him this way was sickening somehow, but just now she felt like she had to look, to see that he was all right with her own eyes. He appeared to be sleeping, his bare chest rising and falling steadily… his prematurely graying hair was long, squashed against the pillow in thick dreadlocks. There were traces of facial hair beginning to grow on his chin and upper lip.

She knew, because she'd been keeping track, that he was three inches taller than the ghost that used to inhabit his body. With real food and some activity he would have been even taller. As it was, he lay in this bed day in and day out, breathing, apparently sleeping, but definitely not dreaming.

Looking at him now she could see the fever in action. His face was flushed and there was a light sheen of sweat on his face, gleaming in the fluorescent lights.

Finding herself very angry all of the sudden she turned on her heel and stormed out, startling the guards again though they had known better than to go back to slacking off. She strode through the corridors forcefully, like she owned them and everyone in them. A few passing technicians rushed by without meeting her eyes, and one ghostly vulture saw her expression and got out of her way all too readily.

"Where you off to in such a hurry, beautiful?" wondered a smooth voice from behind her. She didn't bother to stop walking.

"None of your damn business," she retorted. She had hoped he would get the hint and leave her alone, but naturally he raced to catch up with her, floating along beside her as an irritating companion. He pulled off his sunglasses and grinned down at her, his teeth literally sparkling. At the moment the urge to punch him right in those gleaming teeth was overwhelming.

"Go away, Chaz," she insisted, stopping short.

"Hey now," said the smarmy ghost in a placating manner, "seriously, babe, what's up? Is Vladdy torturing scientists for information again?" One of his four hands reached out and started playing with a strand of her hair.

Jazz only growled, her hands balling into fists.

"I met your brother yesterday," continued Chaz obliviously. "I can't say he was as great as you'd led me to believe… kind of wuss, actually, ya know? No style at all."

"Really," ground out Jazz, slapping his hand away. "I heard he managed to single-handedly defeat you and all your scummy little minions, some of whom haven't managed to find their way back from the Ghost Zone yet."

For a moment Chaz's effervescent smile dimmed. "You know Jazzy, darling, when you say things like that I wonder why I bother with this relationship."

"Oh my God!" cried Jazz, throwing up her hands in frustration, "I do _not _have time for your nonsense right now!" She stormed off, moving as quickly as possible without actually running. Actually _running away _from Chaz would have been unbearable.

Vlad was in his office, playing solitaire on his computer—the monitor screen of which took up an entire wall.

"Ah! Jasmine!" he said, genially x-ing out the game and standing politely as she strode into the room. His smile barely faltered when he saw her expression. Though he had no children of his own, he was given to understand that young women would often get senselessly upset for little to no reason.

"Something amiss in the lab?" he wondered innocently. Meanwhile he edged a few inches away from her, conscious of the fact that more distance between them meant more time for him to transform and disappear from the room. This was not the first time he'd been on the receiving end of one of Jazz's ethical diatribes.

"Tucker has a fever," she said accusingly, waving her ever present clipboard toward him though he obviously couldn't read what it said (nor would he have understood it—Jazz had her own way of keeping everything under control.)

"So?" he asked, his mannered façade dropping a little. "He's a human. If I remember correctly humans get sick sometimes."

"Not when they're kept in a sterile environment," Jazz snapped. Then she continued worriedly, "What if he can't fight it off in his weakened stage?" Vlad looked unimpressed, which only egged on Jazz's ire.

"If he dies we lose our edge over Danny!"

Sighing heavily, Vlad finally dared approach her. He put his hands on her shoulders in a fatherly gesture and told her calmly, "I can have whatever medicine he could possibly need flown here in less than an hour—and that's assuming we don't have it already in our own stores. Trust me, my dear, the boy won't _die_."

With a violent shrug of her shoulders she pulled away from his touch. For just a moment her expression revealed the contempt she felt for him. Then her features carefully settled into mild irritation once more.

"Of course," she said grudgingly, "I was over-reacting."

"Think nothing of it!" Vlad assured her pleasantly. "Really, I find your worry for your friend quite touching."

"That's _not _what was bothering me," she said darkly, turning to leave him to his own devices again. An expression of relief crossed Vlad's features the moment she was gone. Jazz could be scary when she was upset and she seemed so easily upset by everything these days. It was just easier, and to his advantage, to keep her as happy as possible.

As much as he hated to admit it, she had become indispensable. She had at least one hand in every project he undertook, and often headed those projects herself. She made things possible that he wouldn't have bothered trying—his idlest ideas, the most fantastic passing daydreams. He had, since she had inexplicably showed up almost two years ago, come to rely on her completely.

And he still didn't know just why she was helping him. She had given excuses—some fight with Daniel he was almost certain never actually happened. Because even if it had, nothing so trivial would have driven someone as moral bound as Jasmine to embrace his ways—which he admitted without remorse were, well, evil. Whatever it was that kept her with him, he would watch and wait. He would, in time, figure out her real motive and somehow use it to his own advantage.

For now he considered it to his own advantage _not _to let her know just yet that Sam Manson was back in Amity Park. He couldn't be sure how she would take the news. Personally, he felt a warm welcome was in order…

-AP-

"Where are, um… Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, anyway?" Samantha asked after her curiosity got the better of her frustration. She looked around the kitchen subconsciously as if they were going to show up any moment. She couldn't remember anything about them except that they were ghost hunters. Also, now that she thought about it, Mr. Fenton might have been kind of loud.

Tucker looked uncomfortable again and Samantha got the feeling that she was unfairly grilling him for answers. But her curiosity, her desire to learn absolutely everything she could about what had happened since she left, was adamant.

"They're not evil or half-dead too, are they?" she dead-panned when Tucker didn't answer.

He laughed and the tension between them eased almost immediately. She sighed and started eating again. She was used to having Trinda as her go-to for anything, especially close conversation, and it was nice to feel just as comfortable doing so with Tucker.

"Mr. and Mrs. Fenton are ghost hunters," he explained, and she nodded in a way that told him she'd remembered this. So he continued, "Well, do you remember they were a bit, um… too enthusiastic about their job?"

"What do you mean?" wondered Samantha. She found her gaze yet again straying around the perfectly normal kitchen for signs of the paranormal.

"Just that when they went after a ghost, they _really _went after it. Like that's all they'd think about. And they weren't exactly subtle about it. And Mr. Fenton was always inventing the craziest weapons. He has really great ideas. Scary ones too. Almost anything Vlad throws at us is something that Mr. Fenton came up with first. But seriously, Sam, one time they had the whole school on lock-down… and then there's this force field that can extend I don't know how far from the house… they're nuts, okay? I mean, granted all that stuff saved our butts a couple of times, but if they had any idea what was going on in Amity Park—"

"They don't even know?" Samantha gasped. It seemed impossible that two people clearly so obsessed with ghosts didn't know that their own town was slowly integrating with the Ghost Zone.

"No," said Tucker, "And we're doing our best to keep it that way."

For a moment Samantha stared, her mind racing, and then she asked very pointedly, "Where _are _they?"

Tucker sighed, "We don't know. They could be anywhere, but probably in the United States. Sometimes they send post cards." When Samantha still did not seem to understand he added, "They're '_abroad_'. They go around taking care of other peoples' ghost troubles. You'd be surprised how many there are out there, though it's all like the kid's table compared to Amity."

"I can't believe they just left Danny behind like that," said Samantha quietly. Tucker almost groaned. Once again she had cut right to the heart of the situation. He noticed she had a knack for this, and recalled that this had also been true of her before she left.

"They didn't exactly leave him behind…" he began carefully, before spitting out, "It was Danny's idea, actually."

"What?" Samantha snapped, bolting from her seat. "I get it now—you don't want them to know and you're keeping them away. What the heck do you do, start attacking other towns to keep them busy?"

"Only sometimes…"Tucker muttered, "And never _us_, we do have a few friends on the other side you know, so if it looks like Danny's parents want to come back…"

Samantha began to pace around agitatedly. "I can't believe this… it's like… it's despicable! Did Danny even give his parents a chance? Maybe they could _help_, for God's sake!"

"Sam… Sam, please calm down," urged Tucker, floating towards her and wrapping one of her arms in his icy grip. She stopped pacing and looked up at him. He looked sorry he had had to tell her anything. "It's not all that bad…" he explained, "They're having a really, _really _good time out there, trust me. It's what they love. And some people outside Amity really do need their help. And it's not like they're never around—we couldn't keep them away last Christmas, and it was very awkward for all of us." He laughed, remembering, and Samantha calmed down again.

"If they knew what was happening," Tucker finished, "They wouldn't be able to keep it a secret—they would want to warn everyone about it to try and protect them. It's bad enough that Vlad knows, thanks to Jazz. If it gets out on a wide-scale… Our most important job right now is to keep the ghosts from finding out. Otherwise we'll have a whole new wave of tourists, and you know what would happen with all that extra ghost energy floating around."

Samantha sighed and closed her eyes. "All right, all right, I get it. I'm sorry I got so upset, I just… I'm having kind of a hard time coming to grips with everything, you know?"

Tucker nodded. Belatedly he realized he was still holding onto to her arm and let go. Though he couldn't possibly understand what she must be feeling about her own situation, he was well familiar with preoccupation with _his_ problems.

"Also," said Samantha, thinking about how Danny had treated her so far, "I still think Danny is despicable. Coming up with a scheme like that… how can you ever even trust him?"

Tucker sighed.

-AP-

Danny sighed with relief when the front door was closed behind him. His injured shoulder, despite well on its way to healing, had begun throbbing a few hours ago. His whole body was screaming with exhaustion, an experience he felt all too often lately, and the more he imagined himself sleeping in his bed the more his mind drifted—already there.

He would not, he told himself firmly, check up on Sam. If she was even still here, he added to himself miserably. She might have left after last night. Tucker said they'd had a fight, and he was the only one she was willing to be friends with. He experienced suddenly a very strange division of feelings—part of him wished that Sam _had _left, left the three of them alone again like she'd never returned at all, and the other part… perhaps the stronger part… wished with all its might that she would never leave again.

He heard raised voices in the kitchen, and even though he knew it could only be Tucker and Sam—maybe arguing again, for all he knew, and that it was none of his business, he found his feet silently taking him towards the sounds.

"—Danny is despicable!" he heard Sam say, her voice like acid. "Coming up with a scheme like that… how can you ever even trust him?"

Danny stepped back from the door immediately, a grin on his face that had nothing to do with real amusement. _No… she wouldn't trust me _now_, would she? _he thought. Without waiting to hear Tucker's reply, he quickly phased through the ceiling.

-AP-

"Sam," said Tucker patiently, "I know Danny's been kind of a jerk to you—"

"_Kind of_?" repeated Sam. "You have been in the same room with us, haven't you? He doesn't look at me, I obviously make him really uncomfortable, and if he says anything to me at all—"

"Sam, he—"

"_No_," Samantha snapped. "Forget it. I don't care what his problem is. Can you take me back to my house?"

"Your house?" said Tucker blankly before complaining, "No, you can't seriously be leaving! I thought we were friends again!"

She smiled at the word, reassuring him. "I'm not leaving," she told him, "I just want my bag. We left kind of in a hurry yesterday, and I really want to brush my teeth and get into some different clothes."

Tucker grinned. "I still can't believe you're wearing that," he said, nodding at her current attire.

"What's wrong with it?" asked Sam, frowning down at herself. Her clothes were a little rumpled from sleeping in them, but otherwise not bad looking. Considering their designer brands, a far cry better than other peoples', she imagined.

"Nothing," said Tucker innocently. "Let's roll!"

-AP-

Valerie finished her calculus test in half an hour. Not because she was confident with the material, or because she was able to figure out the problems so quickly. She had just wanted to get it over with. Calculus was something she had taken because her dad had urged her to, not because it was a required credit. It was the only level of math she had left to complete and he'd asked, "Why wouldn't you want to take math your senior year? You don't want to be out of practice when you get to college."

And she'd said, "Right. College," and signed up for the class. It was not going well. She had a bad habit of missing the most important days, and Ms. Cornell wasn't keen on tutoring students who didn't bother trying in the first place.

She was alone in the classroom except for the elderly teacher. She stood up, walked to the front of the room, and put the test (which she had not tried very hard on at all) on the front desk.

"That was quick," said Ms. Cornell, eyeing the paper critically.

"I did my best," Valerie assured her, even though they both knew she was lying. The old woman coughed, dismissing her, and Valerie was more than relieved to get out of there. There was still time yet to buy a lunch in the cafeteria and scarf it down before gym. Like Danny she had lost credit for the class, but unlike him she usually attended anyway. She enjoyed the exercise.

As she passed through the crowded halls toward the cafeteria she had a strange sensation that had come to her often throughout the school year—that of being completely detached from everyone around her. Familiar faces flashed by, and she heard familiar voices, snatches of conversations about normal things. It all seemed overwhelming without Danny there with her. Without him she felt so lonely all of the sudden she wondered what would happen if she approached any of her old friends and tried to start a conversation.

_"Hey Paulina!" _she imagined herself saying, _"Wow, long time no talk, huh? Weird since we're in like all the same classes. Love the haircut, by the way, the bangs totally suit you."_

She snorted to herself. She couldn't even begin to imagine what the other girl's reaction would be. She and Paulina—in fact she and most of the other people she had called friends—had not had more conversation than was necessary in years. Somehow, without meaning to, she and Danny had managed to pull away from the rest of their classmates. They were left entirely alone—even by those who used to bully Danny so much.

She supposed they all chalked it up to Tucker "dying", and that was fine with her since it made for an easy excuse as to why she and Danny were so withdrawn, even secretive. These days most other people just pretended she and Danny didn't exist, which made it all the easier to ignore anything strange they might have noticed about the two teens, or how their frequent disappearances all too often coincided with ghost attacks.

_I wonder if anyone has any idea at all_… she thought sadly to herself. Just then she was so lonely she wished someone would figure it out—call her out on the whole thing, and reveal Danny and Tucker too.

But she knew that was ridiculous. It was important to keep their identities secret—especially Danny's, since his could land him on an examination table. How could they ever hope to continue keeping the ghosts at bay or stop the town's downward spiral towards ghost entropy with everyone they were trying to protect getting in the way? Right. Ridiculous. She knew she wouldn't have been having thoughts like these, wouldn't have been lonely at all, if Danny was there. No matter how disconnected she felt from the rest of the world, at Danny's side, she could deal with it.

-AP-

Flying with Tucker this time was a much more enjoyable experience for Sam. Instead of grabbing her awkwardly under the arms they had taken a few moments to figure out a better position for her. Finally they had settled on Tucker holding her under her back and knees, cradling her while she wrapped her arms around his neck for extra support. He agreed that it was easier to keep a grip on her this way and she was much more comfortable.

Now the city was far, far beneath them, and the cold air was brushing against Samantha's skin, biting through her clothes, and whipping her hair around. Occasionally Tucker would have to spit it out, and each time he would complain about it loudly, but obviously he was enjoying himself too.

"You know," he told her conversationally, though he had to raise his voice to speak over the wind, "I don't usually take the ladies flying with me like this… probably because I seriously freak them out."

Samantha laughed, "Yeah, well only because you're not a very reliable flyer. I can't believe you almost dropped me back there!"

"My bad," said Tucker, sounding sheepish. "Well, my _almost _bad. I totally caught you in time."

"Are you sure this isn't too much for you?" Samantha asked seriously. They were very much taking the long way to get to her parents' house, which was walking distance from Danny's anyway, for the sake of this tryst in the sky.

"Don't worry about it," said Tucker with just a little too much bravado in his voice. Samantha laughed again, but she was still worried. Now that she knew what was going on with Tucker she gathered that not being a real ghost put a serious damper on his supernatural abilities. Considering how pleased he'd been to phase them both into the house yesterday, she was a little surprised he was having such a simple time of carrying her all this way.

"There's so much of it…" she said to change the subject, gazing down over the city. She had forgotten how big Amity Park was, from the water front to and the suburbs stretching in all other directions around it, and the wide gorge about a mile from the city limits. She wondered if she'd ever been there, and if there was a river running along the bottom of it. It was probably pretty.

"Let's fly over the forest next time, okay?" she asked Tucker, "Looking at all this industrial encroachment kind of makes me sick."

"Now there's the Sam I know," said Tucker, laughing.

Samantha frowned. "What do you mean?" she asked, but he didn't answer. Instead he told her,

"Hold on, I don't want to drop you again," and abruptly aimed for the ground.

-AP-

Tucker had to make them invisible again as they approached the house, so when they finally landed in the front room he appeared absolutely exhausted.

"Thanks, Tucker," she said trying to act like she didn't really notice, "That was great."

"Yeah, no problem," he said. He sounded winded and was standing instead of floating. He was roughly the same height as Samantha that way, and for one moment of gross curiosity she wondered if his body would look different—taller and more filled out like Danny, instead of like his ghost which was hardly different from what she remembered of him. Then she shook these thoughts from her mind and looked around. Here she was, back in her parents' house.

It felt different this time. Last time, with her only memories of the building being the short time she spent there before being shipped off to Stoneborough Academy, she had felt like an intruder. Now as she headed toward the familiar path up the stairs, to her parents' room where she'd left her bag, her mind prickled. She remembered this place somehow, more so than before. Random images came to her—helping her mother make cookies in her kitchen, opening Hanukah presents in the living room, arguing with her parents, slamming her bedroom door behind her… just where was her old bedroom anyway? She couldn't remember. Now that she thought about it, it was strange how her parents hadn't showed it to her when she came home from the hospital…

She found her bag on the covered bed in her parents' room. Tucker had trailed along behind her, apparently aware that she needed to think and remaining quiet. He watched as she undid the zipper and dug around randomly. A surprised expression crossed her face for a moment, and she pulled her hand out. It was clenched around a thin, pink cell phone.

"Wow, I totally forgot…" she mused, staring at it like it was an alien object. "I wonder if anyone's tried to contact me..."

"Did you have a lot of friends at um… school?" Tucker asked awkwardly.

Oddly, Samantha felt like her throat was closing up. "Yeah," she said quietly. She held down the power button and her phone tinkled to life. After a moment it beeped and she read the screen. "Oh my God," she laughed, "Forty-three new texts." Thinking she might as well get down to reading them, she sat down distractedly on the floor beside the bed. A small cloud of dust came up where her back hit the covers and she coughed.

"Well, read me the good ones," Tucker requested good naturedly, settling down on the floor also but not near enough that his strange energy would scramble the phone. When he leaned back the covers weren't disturbed at all.

Samantha was already scrolling through the messages, her thumbs working the buttons like an old pro. "_Samantha_," she read out loud, "_where r u? wuts the deal?_" "_r u ok?_" "_OMG I CANT BELIEVE U LEFT!" "i miss u." _She stopped reading them out loud after that, though she was still scrolling through them. The frown on her face became more defined with each one she read.

It was… confusing, reading all of those messages. For some reason she'd just assumed no one would care that she was gone. Granted, most of them probably didn't care. Her leaving had probably been one of the most exciting things ever to occur at the Academy, so of course they'd all be curious… some of the messages didn't even have names on them—even people beyond even her extensive contact list, and so what had been her large group of friends wanted to know where she was.

And she had hardly thought of any of them in the past twenty-four hours. Everything had happened so fast, and without realizing it she had just settled into the whole bizarre routine—following along with all the talk about ghosts and multiple dimensions, and being jealous of Valerie and taking crap from Danny and ultimately just trying to find a place here again, like she knew she must have had a place there years before.

Worst of all had been the "_i miss u_"—Trinda had sent that one. Trinda, who understood that Samantha wasn't coming back and wanted to be left alone. Samantha wondered what she was up to…

"Are you okay?" wondered Tucker, dragging her from her thoughts. She was almost surprised to see him there, and doubly surprised to see him as he was—pale, and glowing, clearly not human. It was impossible, it seemed, to think about the Academy, and to think about Amity, and accept them both as real experiences. She stared at the phone in her hands, wondering if responding to any of the messages would make her feel better or worse.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she told Tucker, smiling just a little too late. "I'm going to go change, I'll be out in a second."

Too distracted to remember that it had been half-destroyed the day before, she went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

-AP-

When Valerie got to Danny's house after school she was a little annoyed. Danny hadn't _promised _he'd come back or anything, but he had said he would. And she knew he'd just overslept, but she couldn't help the little knot of worry that settled in her chest whenever she didn't know where he was.

She hadn't planned on waking him up until something became glaringly apparent the further she got into the house. As soon as she was certain she made a beeline for his room.

Amidst all the loose charts and data sheets that predominantly decorated Danny's room, the bed in the middle seemed a strange addition. Currently the boy in question lay on top of the covers, flat on his back with the crook of one arm thrown over his eyes to block out the light. He seemed at peace, which was unusual.

Valerie was sorry waking him, but she knew that sparing him her bad news for an hour or two was not something he would thank her for later.

"Danny," she whispered, shaking him softly. "Danny, get up."

He shifted slightly, grumbled something unintelligible, and finally moved his arm away. The face that was revealed appeared all too exhausted, in need of much more sleep yet. When his eyes focused and found their way to Valerie's expression they flashed green. Immediately he sat up, fully alert.

"What happened?" he demanded.

Valerie bit her lip, hoping she was just over-reacting and that she could trust Danny not to do the same.

"It's Tucker and Sam…" she said, "They're gone."

-AP-

When Samantha emerged a few minutes later she looked and felt refreshed. She'd changed into a tight blue top with three-quarter length sleeves and some pale khakis, reapplied her make-up, and pulled her hair up into a neat pony-tail.

Tucker stared at her.

"What's your deal, kid?" she asked, smiling brightly as though she wanted to make up for sort-of freaking out before. She slung her bag over one shoulder and zipped it shut, her cell phone safely tucked inside.

"I just can't really get used to it," Tucker mused, looking her up and down. "I guess you don't even realize how different you look."

"What's _that _supposed to mean?" she wanted to know, her cheery demeanor immediately turned to a defensive one. Tucker laughed.

"But it's still the same you in there," he assured her. Samantha was not entirely sure what this meant, and felt her frustration growing. It shouldn't be allowed, she reasoned inwardly, that anyone else knew her better than she knew herself.

She said abruptly, "I'm ready to go back."

"Are you sure?" asked Tucker, "I mean, you are aware there's a bowling alley in the basement and—"

"And a full sized movie screen," a snide voice added. Both Tucker and Samantha jumped, startled, but they couldn't see where the voice was coming from. A moment later they had nothing left to wonder.

"Sweet crib," said the ghost as he materialized before them. Samantha stared at him in wonder, unaware of the danger, but Tucker recognized him immediately from Danny's description. The four arms were quite distinctive.

"How the _hell _did you get out of the Ghost Zone already?" he wondered blankly. "Danny didn't even let you out of the thermoses!"

Chaz turned to him as if just noticing his presence. "Ah," he said boredly, though he was clearly annoyed, "If it isn't the halfa who-isn't-actually-a-halfa." After a brief glance over Tucker, during which he somehow managed to convey how very little he thought of his appearance without speaking, he turned his attention back to Samantha.

"I'm guessing you're Sam, oh sorry, I mean _Samantha_. No offense, doll, but I'm not really seeing what's so special about you…"

"What?" asked Samantha after finding her voice. She was starting to think that this was a ghost she should be afraid of.

"Please don't tell me Vlad sent you here to capture her," Tucker groaned.

"In one, kid," replied Chaz calmly.

"Get out of here!" Tucker cried to Samantha, and dove at Chaz. He knew it was useless, but the need to rescue Sam from this creep was pounding through him as if he had a heartbeat. He only hoped his powers would keep up long enough to provide a good distraction.

To be continued…

Post A/N: THERE WE GO. That wasn't so hard, was it? Apologies in advance for the next delay—I'm starting college for the very first time this weekend and I have no idea what my schedule is going to be like—probably hectic.

(As always, super thanks to bluename, cariadiorarua, AFY, Musicallity, kpfan72491, Chaos Dragon (Wow, that would be awesome, but just reading that made my day!), Kovva, YumeTakato, CharmedNightSkye, dessyweird51, otakualways, Lunar Kasumi, Girl of the Graveyard, Kaydreams, A. LaRosa, and Chanel2U!! I don't know how you guys put up with me. It's awesome.)

NEXT TIME: Danny flips out. As if you didn't see that coming…


	8. Losing Control

This so amazing it pre-empts the official author's note! Courtesy of Chaos Dragon, "Remembering Amity" has been nominated for stuff in the DANNY PHANTOM FANFICTION AWARDS. Look it up, kids. If you like DP fanfiction (and I can't imagine why you'd be reading this if you didn't) CHECK IT OUT! There's loads of AWESOME stories nominated already and more to come!

Author's Note: Okay, nobody die of shock, but I'm actually updating. Everybody alive? Good. Seriously, I can hardly believe it myself. I just started writing it in bits and pieces and then just now (instead of doing something lame like homework, mind you) I put in quite a bit of time. And this happened. I am sorry to say I am not sure it will ever happen again. I mean, obviously it's going to _happen _but not nearly this promptly. I'm still figuring out the whole time management thing here at college…

FUNNY PERSONAL ANECDOTE, feel free to skip it if you're already bored and just want to get to the damn chapter already! I won't be offended. Okay, so, for the rest of y'all, I'll share a little tale. Once there was a girl named Cassie (who went by the pseudonym 'The Green Pilgrim' on the interweb—you may have heard of her) and she was supposed to go to college. Then the day before she was to move in she was abruptly diagnosed with pneumonia and had to stay in bed for four days, completely missing orientation. In fact, she was only allowed to start classes with everyone else because she begged. Unfortunately she was very tired all the time AND she was forced to become That Coughing Kid in Class. You know, the one who WON'T STOP COUGHING and you wanna be like "JUST GET A COUGH DROP ALREADY!!" Now she's finally getting better (and not coughing nearly so much), but consequently the bulk of this very chapter is thanks to the fact that she got the most inconveniently timed illness EVER. Thank you for listening to the story, you may now continue with you regularly scheduled

Obligatory meaningful song lyrics:

_And at the gate of the embassy  
Our hands met through the bars  
As your whisper stilled my heart  
"No they'll never catch me now."_

_--The Decemberists_

Remembering Amity

Chapter 8: Losing Control

_"Get out of here!"_

Samantha hardly registered the command. Her blood was rushing too fast, pounding in her ears, and she couldn't hear it. But suddenly her body was reacting. Before she could stop and think she had run from the room, stumbled down the stairs and was pushing at the front door with all her might.

"Open… come on, _open_!" she hissed. She heard a crash upstairs and a fierce shiver went through her entire body. It suddenly occurred to her that she was not opening the door in the right direction and so she pulled with all her might. It opened easily and she dashed out into the sunlight.

It was quiet out on the street, belying the struggle that must be occurring up in the house. Her entire body was tensed—each muscle tightened and prepared for a mad dash in a direction, any direction, that would take her far away from the house and the ghosts battling therein. Her frantic mind pictured it in bits and pieces, her thoughts growing more spastic as the fight played out in her imagination. This was different than last time. Last time the ghost couldn't talk. Last time it hadn't been after _her_.

She started running, and just as she did the images in her mind revealed Tucker, and what must certainly be happening to him. She stopped moving so quickly her momentum brought her forward a few more inches and she nearly fell. What was she even doing? Tucker was up there, facing that creep all on his own. He could be hurt, or killed maybe! (She wasn't sure if this was possible, but she was panicking so much now she was almost certain of it). She had to go back and help!

But what could she do? When it came down to it she didn't know anything about ghosts and certainly she didn't know how one went about fighting them. If only she had one of those thermos things. Did Tucker have his? Would it be enough?

She turned back to face her parents' house and was alarmed by how quiet everything remained. So far the ghost had not come looking for her and she could only hope that meant that Tucker was holding his own… for now. She couldn't help but think of how quick he was to exhaust himself by using his powers.

She took a deep breath and tried to steady her thoughts. The answer was clear: she needed help. She needed Danny. And, completely lost as she was in this city that was no longer her home, she had no idea how to find him. Searching blindly would be a waste of time—a waste of time that Tucker didn't have, no doubt, but it was all she could do. All she could do… except surrender herself to whoever it was that wanted her so badly.

The thought washed through her and seemed to collect in her feet, turning them to stone and weighing them to the sidewalk. That was the answer, wasn't it? That was something that didn't require fighting skills or fancy equipment. That was something she could do on her own to help Tucker. Something she could do without having to run to Danny.

She clenched her teeth together and growled audibly. _Ten minutes_… she told herself. _Ten minutes and if I can't find Danny… then I'll let that ghost find _me

-AP-

"What?" Danny asked, genuinely confused.

Valerie sighed and fought the urge to sit on the edge of his bed, to comfort him somehow. She would have if the need to spring into action wasn't coursing through her veins. She could feel the adrenaline building already, a high truly like no other, and even though she recognized the seriousness of the situation she reveled in it.

"Tucker and Sam are gone," she repeated stoically, "We have to—"

She cut herself off because of Danny's expression, which had gone suddenly and horribly blank.

"Oh," he said, the one syllable equally lacking in emotion. He sat up straighter and rubbed his eyes, which continued to look alarmingly glassy even when he'd done so. "What time is it?" he asked.

Valerie, as an instinctive reaction, glanced down at her watch. "Three fifteen," she told him, not bothering to disguise her worry.

"Oh," Danny said again, with the same horrible blankness. He swung his legs over the side of his bed and headed toward the door, automatically floating a few inches above the endless array of papers kept there. Valerie charged after him with hardly the same care in mind.

"Danny…" she started, as she followed the alarmingly straight-backed boy downstairs. "Where are you going?"

There was a pause, as if he hadn't heard her, and she was about to ask again when he replied, "Kitchen. I'm hungry."

Amazed, Valerie felt she could only follow as he did indeed head right toward the kitchen. She felt the energy that had come to her so easily before seeping away as she watched, wide-eyed, as Danny set about making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Or trying to. He managed to find two slices of bread and the peanut butter but as soon as he'd located the jelly the jar slipped from (or, Valerie suspected though she could not see for herself, _through_) his fingers and crashed to the floor. The glass shattered. The purple goop (which was probably too old for eating anyway) splattered neatly within a three foot radius, predominantly on Danny's sneakers, which she noticed he had not removed when he went to sleep.

For a moment neither of them moved. Danny was not looking at the floor, at the mess, but rather the hand that had gone so inconveniently intangible. It had been a while since he'd lost control of his powers like that. His face remained expressionless.

"Danny…" said Valerie quietly, stepping toward him with care not to slip, "We need to do something."

When his eyes found hers they were very pale and sort of green, and she saw pain in them that was only marginally better than the horrible blankness they'd exuded before.

"Did they… leave a note, or something?" he asked, as if each word was being dragged out of him.

For a moment Valerie didn't comprehend. _A note?_ she wondered to herself. _Does he mean like a ransom note? It doesn't look like they were kidnapped… not from _here_ anyway_, she amended.

Then it dawned on her. Suddenly her friend's reaction made all too much sense.

"Oh, shut _up_!" she cried, "I didn't mean they _left_, for God's sake! I just meant they're _gone_! They could be in danger, and we need to find them!"

Her anger seemed to kindle some spirit back into the half-ghost. He shook his head as if to dislodge whatever thoughts had kept him in the weird trance and asked, "You think something happened to them?"

Valerie put her hands on her hips. "No," she snapped, "I think the two of them ran off to Vegas together to get married in a drive-through. Idiot, did you honestly think they would do something like that?"

Danny slouched in a way that Valerie recognized as him going on the defensive. "Well, not _Vegas_, of course not. But Sam—"

Valerie glared at him. "Fine," she agreed, "None of us really _knows_ Sam anymore, do we? Maybe she _is_ playing the slots by now. You've certainly done your best to get rid of her since she got here." He began to protest but she continued heedlessly, "But you _do _know Tucker. You know he wouldn't just leave us like that." Then she added, under her breath and quite churlishly, "Honestly, she's not _that _great…"

Danny did not seem to notice. She could tell from his pensive expression and the set of his body that he had quickly switched into action mode. She heaved a sigh of relief and reached into that store of ready-to-go energy within her own body. If all of this resulted in a fight she would let it wash over her, consume her completely, so she would forget about how tired Danny seemed these days, and what Sam was doing to him and to their friendship, and she could lose herself in the beauty of the battle and the bright blasts of her personal arsenal.

"Where should we go?" she asked, her tone quite different from before. Now that she was sure of his reaction she was ready to step back and let him take the lead. Already he was going ghost. It was a sight Valerie had seen thousands of times but could never fully get used to: that of Danny Fenton, whom she had for so long thought of as "cute" and "funny" and "nice", transforming before her very eyes into the most dangerous ghost in Amity Park.

"Sam's house," Danny replied with dead certainty. "Tucker mentioned that Sam's stuff got left behind after the fight there. It's possible they went to go get it."

"It's possible there's no trouble at all," Valerie agreed, her tone like a snake preparing to strike.

"Right," said Danny, grinning though there was no amusement in his fiercely glowing eyes. Without another word he kicked off and shot straight through the ceiling, leaving behind a splash of jelly in his wake. Valerie took less than a second to appreciate the fact that only Danny Phantom could make spilt jelly look cool, and then dashed out to meet him.

When the two met outside they wordlessly flew off in the same direction, their bodies completely in sync with each other as only years of companionship could make them.

-AP-

Tucker could become reasonably solid, most of the time. It had gotten easier to do as the months passed. It was especially easy to do when he wasn't thinking about it. He enjoyed being solid because he was more useful that way, and also because Danny and Valerie both were. Obviously.

Sometimes Tucker was too tired to become solid. Often his powers were difficult to control. This… this felt like something completely different.

"Ooooow," Tucker groaned. He had meant to phase through the old, dusty wardrobe before he was thrown into it. He really had. It was usually easier to be intangible than it was to be solid. But he had certainly been one hundred percent corporeal for the impact—the result of which had him flat on his back with most of the wardrobe in a ruined pile, crushing his chest. "Oooow," he said again, for good measure.

Chaz strolled over to him smoothly. Not one of his golden hairs was out of place, despite the fact it had taken a few minutes longer than he had anticipated to defeat the weaker ghost. Tucker's ferocity had caught him off guard, and the kid even landed a few good punches before Chaz had wrestled him off.

"Nice try, pipsqueak," he said with a grin that was positively feral. It was a generally untrue statement—Tucker and Chaz were roughly the same size and the teen didn't think there was anything nice about being crushed beneath a wardrobe. He tried to say as much but all he could manage was a wheezy sort of, "Nnngh."

Chaz was obviously prepared for further gloating, but he caught himself before he continued. A new sense of urgency, odd compared to his normally over-casual demeanor, appeared to overtake him. He whirled around and surveyed the empty room with dismay before stomping one foot childishly.

"Where's the girl?" he snapped.

Tucker, finally, felt himself drift into intangibility. The relief of not feeling the weight of the heavy furniture debris was immediate and he barked a laugh. He stood slowly—unnecessary because he could no longer feel anything, but perhaps out of habit, or dramatic affect—and faced the smarmy ghost.

"Nice try," he said simply. It was a total egg-on, and he fully expected the attack that followed, but knew that whatever happened to him was worth it. As long as Chaz was distracted, Sam had more time to get away.

-AP-

"I dunno why you'd want to go there," the elderly man said slowly and with general unhelpfulness. "Nobody lives there anymore except the Fenton boy." He eyed Sam up and down suspiciously. "You a playmate from school or something?"

Samantha tried very hard to reign in her wildly escaping patience. The old man, apparently out for a stroll, had been the first person she'd come across after setting off from her parents' house. Now she wished more than anything she'd just kept running right on past him. "Yes," she replied, hoping that the lie would be the simplest explanation. "I'm supposed to, uhm, work on a project with Danny but I don't know where he lives."

"Well," said the old man huffily, "I don't see why you can't just ask him yourself through the internets—I know that's all you kids do these days. Talk and talk and talk through the internets. Like you're not even people anymore."

"Right," Samantha agreed, pasting a smile on her face that she hoped wasn't too manic. "_Please _just tell me how to get to the Fentons' house!"

"Well, okay…" said the man doubtfully. He paused for an excruciating length of time, scratching his stubbly chin with a fingernail that was way too long. "That way," he said finally, pointing, irritatingly enough, in the very direction Samantha had been running. "Go that way," he said again, "For three blocks. Or is it four? Hang a left and it's right down the street. You can't miss it, 'cause there's a big sign. _Big sign,_" he emphasized, apparently for her benefit. "Those Fentons are crazy, I tell you, all of them completely whacko, ghosts or no ghosts—"

But Samantha wasn't listening anymore. As soon as she'd determined she wasn't going to get anything more specific out of her less-than-lucid guide she sped off the way he'd indicated.

It wasn't long before she was completely out of breath, and she could feel sweat gathering under her bangs and trickling down her back.

_Come on_, she urged herself, _it's just a few blocks… this should be a piece of cake…_

But each step only grew more difficult. For the first time ever she regretted never having participated in gym class. It had been "mandatory" at the Academy for anyone not involved in a sport, but this rule was never exactly applied to the greatest extent. The most they ever had to do was change into the standardized shorts and polo shorts and stand around talking while the bored phys. ed. teacher occasionally convinced a few of them to play soccer or something. Not to mention the yearly fitness tests, which Samantha had passed with flying colors her sophomore year before learning that no one ever actually _tried _during those things and promptly failing each year after that. Not that something so pointless counted for a grade at the Academy.

Samantha shook her head, huffing and puffing. Now was not the time to think about school. Tucker could be seriously hurt! Why hadn't she paid more attention to where they were going from the air?

It was five blocks before a leftward glance brought her to a skidding halt. There, down the street, _finally,_ was the huge sign she'd been looking for. It was not, in fact, all that great a distance from her old house. Sudden elation (and lack of oxygen) made her feel giddy, but she forced herself in the right direction. It was after school hours—Danny had to be home, he just _had _to be.

-AP-

Danny reached Sam's house before Valerie did, having instinctively put on an extra burst of speed in his anxiousness to get to the scene. Valerie was momentarily surprised to find that he'd waited for her outside rather than barging in on his own like he did in just about every other situation—ones much more dangerous than this, she thought, rolling her eyes behind her mask. She deactivated her jet sled and met him on the front steps.

"Thanks for waiting," she said, a little more sarcastically than she'd intended. She was irritated because she knew just what had caused Danny's hesitation—as much as he wanted to find Sam, he still couldn't bear the thought of facing her.

"No problem," he said off-handedly, staring at the front door like it might bite him at any given moment.

Valerie held out her hand. "Are you going to take us in, or not?"

Danny started, as if actually going into the house had not been part of the plan. "Oh," he said, "Yeah, right." He grasped her hand. Valerie felt the cool nothingness of intangibility sweep through her body and together they walked through the door.

She watched him carefully out of the corner of her eye once they were inside. This would have been more difficult if she wasn't so worried about him—she was honestly curious to see the inside of the home in which Sam Manson had grown up. It was hard to believe that someone so obviously wealthy would purposely choose to be so unpopular. Then again, Valerie reflected, that was one of those nagging things she admired about the other girl. She didn't want friends who liked her just for her money—friends like Valerie'd had, a whole other lifetime ago.

Danny did not appear curious about their surroundings—which were drab and dust-covered in a way that hinted at dormant opulence. Of course Valerie had realized already that he must have been here hundreds of times before. Coming back was hard for him, especially considering the memories he couldn't help but associate with this place.

Without having to plan it out loud they simultaneously made their way to a rather grand looking staircase.

"You okay?" she murmured.

"Do you really have to ask?" he countered through gritted teeth. She shrugged, unwilling to break the silence further as they reached the top of the stairs. The entire house was quiet. It was large enough that they might not hear someone else within, but there was a very distinct emptiness to it. What with all the dust covers and general lack of personal touches the house might have been untouched for years.

Valerie followed Danny, guessing where he was headed even before he turned a corner confidently and opened a door that was rather unassuming compared to the rest of the house. He did not open the door all the way and seemed unwilling to set foot inside. She peered curiously over his shoulder but the interior was completely dark—the curtains covering the windows must have been heavy, though a meager ray of sunlight skimmed through an uncovered slip. It was not enough to reveal any details.

"Doesn't look like they came here," said Danny. Valerie, who was usually an expert when it came to interpreting Danny's feelings, could not determine whether he was more disappointed or relieved.

"It's a big house," she pointed out, not quite sure whether or not this would be a comfort, "Maybe they didn't come here, exactly, but we should keep looking…"

"Why wouldn't she go to her own room?" Danny asked, sounded positively wretched.

Valerie took a deep breath, but she wasn't sure just how much of this she was willing to take. She was worried about Tucker, and Sam too but only because something happening to her would send Danny over the edge, and she knew it was necessary to stay focused on the task at hand. But sooner or later Danny would have to confront his feelings… maybe now, while they were alone…

Then she heard it—it sounded like a moan—and judging by Danny's expression he had heard it too. He closed the door to Sam's old bedroom as quietly as possible and reached for Valerie's hand. She took it unquestioningly and felt as he made them invisible. Silent steps took them back to the main hall, where the sound had come from. They did not move for a moment, but stood painfully still and silent, their ears perked for a hint of the sound's specific origin. It came seconds later: a very familiar voice groaning one word.

_"Fuck_._"_

They shot each other looks, seen in that strange way that Valerie could still see Danny when he made her invisible with him, and they set off immediately to the end of the hall where double doors opened into a large bedroom.

Valerie couldn't help but gasp. If the rest of the house was untouched than this was clearly where the storm had hit. The thick white sheets that must have been covering the furniture lay in tatters on the floor, a heavy wardrobe that had probably stood in the corner had all but shattered with a few of the larger pieces flung about, and what had been a large, ornate canopy bed was entirely collapsed in on itself. Dust particles still danced visibly through the air—all this destruction was recent.

Pinpointing Tucker's exact location wasn't easy, and for a horrified breath or two Valerie wondered if he was trapped beneath the heavy ruins of the bed. But why wouldn't he just phase through it? Danny did not bother to stop and think. As soon as they'd reached the room he'd let go of her hand and begun a general search of the place. He stopped when his iridescent gaze found its way to the other side of the large bed—the only part of the room that had been hidden from the door. Valerie rushed to his side, and would have gasped if she hadn't, ultimately, seen things far stranger.

Tucker seemed to be passing in and out of existence in quick succession. He was hunched over, curling in on himself as much as he could while still supporting himself on his feet. Or trying to, as his erratic transitions to intangibility left him sinking through the floor or floating inches above it, apparently entirely beyond his control. Sometimes it was slow—first all the color would drain from his appearance, then the wall and the floor became visible right through him, and finally he disappeared altogether, only to fade back much in the same way, possibly with his feet stuck through the carpeting. Other times it was more sporadic and instantaneous. Danny and Valerie could not tell if any of the bizarre affliction was causing him pain.

They both got down on their knees beside their friend, unsure whether touching him would help or hurt. So far he had not opened his tightly clenched eyes, and had not acknowledged their presence in the slightest, though they were so close he must have felt them.

"Tuck…" Danny breathed, catching himself before he asked something stupid like, "Are you all right?" and going for the more practical question of, "What happened?"

Tucker, who's transitions had grown somewhat steadier for the moment, slowly opened his eyes to look at his best friend. This time Valerie did gasp. Usually Tucker's eyes glowed a bit, like Danny in his ghost form though not quite as bright as when the halfa really kicked in his power. Now they were positively radiating, too bright to be called green anymore. She thought her heart might stop during the long pause he took before deciding to speak.

Before he did, he laughed. Valerie wanted to hit him. That was Tucker—always laughing when things got too scary. Especially things concerning himself.

"Hey, you guys just missed the party…" he chuckled. The sound of his voice was more echo-y than usual. Valerie shot a worried glance at Danny, but his attention was fixed solely on Tucker.

"What happened?" Danny repeated. His expression did not reveal relief and he did not allow himself to be goaded into Tucker's apparent amusement. This was Taking Charge Danny, this was All Business Danny. This was, to Valerie at least, Danny at his most dangerous.

"Did Sam send you guys here? She's okay, right?" Tucker asked. He was still laughing, like he couldn't have stopped if he wanted to.

"Sam?" Danny repeated, his frown increasing tenfold. "Tucker, where _is _Sam? Wasn't she with you?"

Tucker obviously did not find this very funny and tried to stop laughing. It was a losing battle, clearly as futile as trying to stop disappearing and reappearing. "She was," he confirmed between chuckles. "We came here… to get her stuff… that ghost, _Chaz_… found us… Sam ran and I… distracted him…"

Valerie couldn't help but touch him now. Her hand snapped up of its own volition and she quickly gained control of the instinctive move, guiding it more gently towards Tucker's face. She let her hand rest against his cheek, so lightly it was barely touching at all. He did not flinch. He didn't even seem to feel it, but the part of him in contact with her skin remained cold and tangible and no longer switched with the rest of his body. His glowing eyes flicked towards hers, and she held his gaze although it was too bright to look at. He took a deep breath and was finally able to stop laughing.

"How did he do this to you?" Valerie asked, keeping her voice neutral though her mind was awash in miserable uncertainty and an immediate thirst for revenge.

Tucker made a sound as if he was going to start laughing again, but caught himself before he could. "I don't think he did," he said, abruptly disappearing and returning, "My powers were weird before he'd really done anything to me... I tried to phase through the wardrobe and I couldn't." He gestured toward the wrecked piece of furniture with his eyes and the others glanced back at what they'd already seen before. That explained that particular bit of the destruction, anyway.

"Are you sure?" Valerie demanded, "Did he use an ecto-blast? Did he have any kind of weapon on him, something hidden even, that might have shorted out your powers?"

Tucker closed his eyes and shook his head, hugging his knees closer to him—hugging _through _them accidentally and then abruptly re-solidifying for a few alarming moments.

"It's possible," he amended, but he was obviously doubtful. "It didn't get bad until after he really started whaling on me, I'd pinpoint it somewhere around the time he kicked me through the bed…" Valerie looked over at the huge wooden structure again and sucked air in sharply through her teeth. She looked over at Danny and prepared to get annoyed with him. What did he think he was doing, just sitting there quietly while his best friend couldn't keep his grip on reality? He should be coming up with a plan, or figuring out a way to fix it! Then she saw his expression, which was deep in thought and focused rather intensely on Tucker, and knew he was still assessing the situation.

_Stop being jumpy, _she told herself. _Of course Danny knows what he's doing_.

"I'm going to hug you," Danny said to Tucker. Tucker opened his eyes abruptly and laughed.

"I'm touched, dude, really, but is now really the time—"

Danny talked right over him, quite expecting the quip. "And then I'm going to make us both intangible and then tangible again, and you are going to try and stay that way."

Tucker nodded, finally appearing serious. "What if it doesn't work?" he asked, off-handedly.

Danny had his answer ready. "I'll make us intangible again. That much I _know _I can do. And then—"

"And then I'll tell you all about Sam," Tucker finished with a knowing look.

The statement caught Danny off guard and cut through his "commander" demeanor. "Right," he agreed.

Valerie pulled her hand away from Tucker and scooted back a little bit, though it was probably unnecessary. Her fingers were cold where she had touched him. She held her breath when Danny reached forward and put his arms around his best friend and watched as, together, they disappeared.

-AP-

The house was empty. Samantha felt like she was in a nightmare—one of those frustrating ones where  
there's no one else in the world and you're really scared but you have no voice to scream with. The front door was unlocked and she tore through the entire house, inspecting the room behind every door except for one that was locked downstairs that she vaguely knew lead to the basement.

She found that she could, in fact, scream. And she did. Or yell at least. "DANNY!" she called as loudly as she could, even though she knew it was useless. "DANNY? VALERIE? DANNY?"

There was no answer, and she went over to the couch, unsure whether she should sit down and catch her breath or head right back out to the street.

What now? This house was the only connection she had to Danny and Valerie. Who knew where they were now and what they were up to? They weren't here, and so they weren't going to be any help to Tucker. She felt her heart immediately skip a beat or two just thinking about him. Was he all right? Were he and the other ghost still fighting? If only she hadn't left him all alone like that. She hadn't meant to. She'd run out of there before she even knew what she was doing…

But it was too late to worry about what she _had _done. The only thing left to do was as she had planned before, should her search for Danny fail—go back.

Her decision made, she wiped her eyes hurriedly as if she expected herself to be crying even though she wasn't. Then she discovered that she didn't have to go anywhere. Somehow, the four-armed ghost had found her.

"Hey there, doll," he said, standing right in the middle of the living room like he owned the place. Actually, Samantha noticed that this was an attitude exuded by his entire voice and person, and one he probably carried with him anywhere. It was strange, really. His four arms and sharp teeth were a little frightening, but he seemed much more… arrogant and pig-headed than exactly _evil_.

"The name's Samantha. You got it right before." Samantha pointed out before shutting her mouth tight. She hadn't meant to say anything at all. She'd rather thought she was too scared to speak. Apparently not.

The ghost grinned, his numerous fangs gleaming. "Cute," he said, approvingly. "Capturing you might be more fun than I thought."

Now Samantha kept herself from replying, instead standing frozen and waiting for him to make his move. He didn't seem to be in too much of a hurry. She watched as he shoved two of his hands into his the pockets of his sleek jacket and looked around the room. She couldn't see his eyes behind his sunglasses, but it was clear he found his surroundings distasteful.

"And to think Plasmius told me not to try for you here," he scoffed. "_This _is apparently the big headquarters, where the dream team collaborates and keeps up a huge weapons arsenal." He snorted. "Puh-lease. Look at this place!"

Samantha knew what he meant. It was just as she'd noticed from the beginning: the house did seem far too normal for any of the things the ghost described, even though she knew most of them to be true.

"I believe what Vladdy was getting at," the ghost continued, "Was not to attack when Danny is actually _here_." He shot her a look as if to say she shouldn't bother with any tricks. The thought hadn't even occurred to her. Getting him to believe Danny was around would only buy her a few more seconds. Could she outrun him even then? For now she couldn't do anything, not until she found out what had happened to Tucker.

"I imagine he and his girlfriend are tending to your unfortunate ghost friend. You kids have a nasty habit of knowing _exactly_ where to be at _exactly _the wrong time," he said accusingly. "Which is why you and I gotta jet…" he added approaching her in a way that was astonishingly menacing despite his diminutive size. The more time Samantha spent observing him the easier it was to see his true malevolence. She backed up as best as she could, but hit the couch all too soon with nowhere to go.

"What's so unfortunate about Tucker?" she asked, desperate both for information and to distract him if for only another moment.

The ghost smiled gleefully and shrugged. "You got me," he said. "I wouldn't exactly call our face-off epic. I barely touched him before he lost control of his own bod. The kid doesn't even know how to stay real."

Samantha hardly understood half of what he'd said but she gathered the important part. "So he's okay? I mean he's… he got away?"

"Okay?" the ghost laughed. "No idea, sweetie. As for getting away, he didn't have to. I mean, he was a bit _too _pathetic. I may be low, but I've got some standards…"

Despite her own predicament Samantha felt a sudden intense relief. So Tucker was _not real _and _pathetic _but it sounded like he was okay. Maybe he'd tricked the other ghost? She sighed and sat down abruptly on the couch for the first time since she'd set foot in the house.

Immediately she winced, but she had more sense than to give away anything else. This couch was not nearly as comfortable as the others had made it seem when they'd gathered around it. In fact, it was extremely hard and kind of lumpy, like there were several large objects stuffed between the cushions. She held her breath, hardly daring to believe her luck, as in her mind she thought of what the ghost had told her before… _Plasmius told me not to try for you here… a huge weapons arsenal…_

"What kind of standards?" she blurted. She was unsure just how long she could keep this conversation going, but all the while she carefully slipped her hand behind her, reaching back to feel beneath the cushions. She couldn't be certain if her guess was correct. For all she knew there were rocks in the couch, or years and years worth of remote controls lost beneath the cushions.

Now the ghost adopted an altogether different expression, his daggered smile smarmier than ever as he raised his eyebrows. "Oh, don't worry baby, my standards aren't _that _high…" He lowered his sunglasses, revealing eyes that were almost entirely black. He appeared to be checking her out, looking her up and down a bit more than was necessary, but obviously he wasn't really paying attention to her or surely he would have realized what she was doing. Samantha could hardly believe how self-centered he was.

"Oh?" she said, trying to sound interested. It took quite a bit of effort. "That's good to know…" Her fingers found something cool and metallic. She felt over the object as best as she could and thought it felt sort of like a gun. There, that must be the trigger. She smiled up at the ghost now, who was smoothing his blond hair back jauntily and seemed completely unconcerned with taking all the time in the world with taking her to his boss. _Please let this be a gun, _she thought_, please let this be a gun_…

And as quickly as she could she whipped it out and pulled the trigger. She shrieked with surprise: it wasn't any kind of gun she'd seen before. Instead of bullets it shot out a beam of bright energy, so powerful she felt the weapon vibrating. The light was alike in intensity to that of Tucker's thermos but it was red instead of blue. Also, instead of pulling the ghost in it hit him square on the chest, just above the extra arm that sprouted there, and sent him flying back all the way the to the opposite wall.

She didn't need more cue then that to get out of there. Dropping the weapon, then immediately wishing she hadn't but not daring to take the time to pick it up again, she made a mad dash for the door. Once outside she set off running back towards her parents' house. It wasn't as hard to run this time, she supposed probably because she felt so elated. She had just escaped! All on her own! Granted, she would have been lost if it weren't for those weapons stuffed in the couch (and what kind of place was that to store weapons anyway? She wondered where else they kept things like that in the unassuming house…).

But despite her victory, here she was again. Running to Danny. The thought twisted her insides but she knew it was the only thing she could do. She only hoped he was at her parents' house, and that he had found Tucker, and that Tucker was okay.

Only now did it occur to her to wonder: just what the hell did someone like _Vlad Plasmius_ want with her anyway?

-AP-

Danny kept a firm grip on Tucker's arm. His friend had assured him he was fine—becoming fully solid was out of the question, but he had settled into a comfortable translucence that was at least stable. Danny had made his hand likewise in order to keep a hold of him, should his friend suddenly find himself unable to fly.

Truth be told he was more relieved than he could say when his idea had worked as well as it had—or more relieved than he _would_ say even if he could because it would be weird to get all gushy over Tucker like that. So, like the normal teenage boys they pretended to be sometimes, Danny had said, "I'm glad you're okay," and Tucker had grinned and said, "Yeah, thanks dude."

Valerie, however, had rolled her eyes and promptly grabbed Tucker into a hug herself, the best she could anyway the way he was. Danny thought she might even have cried if he hadn't interrupted and suggested getting out of there. The thought was scary—it took _a lot _to make Valerie cry. But he entirely knew where she was coming from. With Tucker the way he was—a ghost, for all intents and purposes—it was easy to take his safety for granted. Not anymore though. His friend had always had a shaky grip on his powers, which was an effect of not being a full ghost. But they had never gone so haywire as they had just seen. He found himself suddenly wishing that Jazz were there—Jazz would know what was going on with Tucker and she'd probably figure out a way to fix him too. Way before Danny could come up with the same solution.

Of course, seeking Jazz's advice was out of the question. He almost laughed at the idea, but it wasn't particularly funny. The siblings had met several times over the recent years, and the reunions had never been pleasant. Thankfully they'd all been brief as well, but that didn't mean they didn't turn up in his mind every now and then and pain him, like old scars. He wondered if that wasn't the reason Vlad brought her along sometimes—to show her off like some human trophy, to show that he'd finally won something from Danny. But he couldn't imagine Jazz being used like that, whatever she thought she was doing.

Presently he and Tucker were flying away from Sam's house—slowly. Valerie kept skimming ahead impatiently before zooming right back to meet them.

Right now the plan did not extend much further than making it back to the house in hopes of finding Sam there. Tucker had said she escaped with ample time to hide before Chaz had gone after her. It was very likely she'd gotten away. Surely she'd gotten away, Sam could take care of herself…

It was just as Valerie had come back to them again that Danny was interrupted from his thoughts by something that neither Tucker or Valerie could detect. Tucker only knew something was wrong by the sudden stiffness in his friend's body.

"What—" he began, but Danny shook his head and motioned for silence, as if any sound would prove he'd made a mistake. But there was no mistaking this particular feeling. It was cold, like his ghost sense, but at the same time burning hot as every molecule in his body seemed to buzz. It was half physical and half instinct, and, and this was something he would not share with Tucker or Valerie, it was actually sort of pleasant.

Danny's entire existence was based on the different energies of the two universes—he could feel their fluctuations like he could feel air currents while flying. In Amity Park they shifted and changed constantly, but always the normal energy, that of the human world, remained dominant. Only sometimes, like this very moment, there was a sudden a dramatic switch. Sometimes it happened from too much ghost activity in one area. Sometimes it was pure entropy. It always lead to the same result.

"Portal," Danny murmured, hardly able to speak above the whirring of his own senses. Each portal opening seemed to grow more and more intense. He could hardly remember the time when he was unaffected by it. Now each time left him like this, feeling the inter-dimensional rift in every part of him, his ghost half reveling in it all the while, until it was fully opened and the energy began to settle again. He often wondered why portals _closing_, a sight much more preferable as it meant an _end _to trouble, didn't have nearly the same affect on him.

"What?" Valerie cried. "Here? _Now?_" They were hardly a block from Sam's house. It was still the afternoon, still bright and sunny. There were people on the street, cars headed their way. It was all a matter of chance whether any ghosts would come through just now, but they knew from experience the situation could get ugly fast.

"Five and a half feet that way," said Danny, pointing in the direction they had come from and a little upward. Valerie cursed but didn't question his certainty.

"I think that means we should move now," Tucker urged them nervously. For a moment _he _was guiding Danny in the air, tugging him gently away from where the portal would be opening. It was always strange to see the way Danny got around the portals—Tucker could sense them once they were open, like all ghosts could, but for now he and Valerie felt nothing.

Danny recovered himself abruptly—or appeared to. Tucker imagined most of it was just for show, because that was Danny's way.

He was relieved when Danny took main control over their flight again since it wasn't something he could have kept up for much longer. Generally, he hated trouble, but just now part of him was glad for it. Despite his great need for rest he craved a distraction. As of yet he wasn't sure just what had happened to him, but it had been one of the scariest in an unusually long list of scary things. He wasn't ready to think about it, or what it could possibly mean.

A small crowd had gathered below them at the end of the street—keeping generally out of the way but eager to see what was going on nonetheless. Danny felt himself get irritated as he always did. People just did not understand how much danger they willingly put themselves in. He prepared to call down to them, tell them to be on their way and hopefully clear the area before who-knew-what was unleashed on the town, but abruptly swallowed whatever he was going to say when Sam's face appeared amongst all the rest. She looked up at him and waved an arm, shoving her way through the other spectators.

"Danny!" she cried. Suddenly Danny couldn't think of anything else, even with the energies clashing so strongly around him. He only saw Sam, calling to him. And she wasn't curious, or mad, or accusing, she was _relieved_. Most importantly, she was all right.

And then just as abruptly Sam and everything else faded. The portal was opening.

To be continued…

Post A/N: Wow. I meant to get so much farther in this chapter than I did. And it's like the longest one so far. [dazed and confused I honestly do not know what happened.

(ANYWAYS, super thanks to Lunar Kasumi, Musicallity, Chaos Dragon, love comes and goes, MssWriter, cariadiorarua, otakualways, freaky-callback-girl, CharmedNightSkye, kpfan72491, and Girl of the Graveyard!)

NEXT TIME: Danny finally explains himself, but not in a way that is particularly helpful.


	9. Biggest Blame Fool Part 1

Author's Note: Aaaaaaaaah—hi there! So, as you can see, this is finally getting out. I had glorious plans for this break, let me tell you. They involved not only updating this story frequently, but _finishing _it! Alas that it cannot be so, for I seriously over-estimated the amount of free time I have, not to mentioned my willingness to spend what time I do have working on this. Also, this was kind of a hard chapter to write since it marks a transition in how things are moving along.

In light of all this (and the fact that it's already longer than any other chapter, despite being only about half finished), I'm going to post the _first half _right now, and the second half… well whenever the second half gets done. Which should hopefully be sometime this weekend. However, it is necessary to my occasional symptoms of OCD that I still consider them both chapter 9. Just so you know.

Disclaimer: The chapter title is from Dr. Seuss, and like the first scene you are about to read, it will make more sense when we get to Part 2!

Obligatory meaningful song lyrics:

_It was BIG and __UGLY  
__(I don't think it liked me!)  
__It was LARGE and __GRUESOME  
__(I don't think it liked me!)_

_--Harry and the Potters_

Remembering Amity

Chapter 9: Biggest Blame Fool (Part 1)

_She forced him roughly against the wall, and the impact was so harsh all the breath left his body in a loud "__oof__." Immediately she was on him, her ecto gun jammed uncomfortably beneath his collar bone while her body kept him in place, so tightly against him it would have been distracting if he wasn't already distracted by more important things._

_Danny refocused his thoughts and stared at her with confused and forlorn eyes. He did not struggle. Valerie did not let on just how much this caught her off guard._

_"Something's changed," he said quietly. It was a response to the anger he could sense from her without having to see her face. It wasn't the same old irritation, the worn out vendetta. It was fresh, and livid. _

_He stared at her like she was a new species, like something he had never seen before. It was very disconcerting. Valerie swallowed and forced her gun against him even harder, shifting the bone slightly and causing him to wince. _

_"Rumor has it you were involved in Sam Manson's 'accident,'" she snarled._

_"You don't even like Sam," he pointed out. It was a pretty bizarre thing to say. He looked as if he realized that._

_What's it to him? Valerie wondered. Out loud she continued,_

_"She's best friends with _my_ best friend. Now he's miserable and I'm angry. It's bad enough when you go terrorizing the town, but if you're targeting my friends," she strengthened her grip on him and charged up the gun, "you deserve this."_

_And then his gaze lost its bewilderment and settled into a strange, stony calm. His body relaxed against her. "You're right," he said, "I do."_

_This, more than anything, caught her off guard. She was still angry, and she still wanted to kill him. But just now he looked completely and utterly defeated. And not by her, she knew. She was strong, but he had always been stronger, and if he wanted to he could shove her off and fly away, or simply disappear through the wall behind him. But he didn't. He watched her calmly, waiting for her to pull the trigger._

_And, she realized further, the shot wouldn't even kill him. Weaken him, certainly. Hurt like a bitch at such a close distance, no question. He literally wanted to be hurt so badly, and he was expecting her to do it._

_At least we agree on something, she thought to herself… you _do_ deserve this!_

_But doubt nagged at her. It had been a while since she'd been this close to him for so long. He seemed different… he looked smaller, somehow, like he was trying to shrink in on himself. The logical part of her mind shrieked to her that it was just one of his games—he was messing with her, trying to get her to feel sorry for him. If that was the case, the rest of her was falling for it. _

_Get a grip, she commanded herself. Whatever his game was, she sure as hell wasn't going to play along._

_"Wait!" a voice called from about a block away. Valerie's head turned, but she noticed that the ghost did not bother. His eyes closed in defeat._

_"Valerie, wait!" the voice cried again, and she saw that it was Tucker Foley and she was confused and angry because just how the hell did he know it was her? He came to a skidding stop beside the two of them: his best friend and the girl who wanted to kill him. Valerie had not, Tucker couldn't help but notice, loosened her grip on Danny or the gun since his arrival._

_"God," Tucker snapped. "Can't a man go for a walk without running into an idiotic mess like this?"_

_"Idiotic?" Valerie growled, while Danny raised his eyebrows and quipped weakly, "Man, Tuck?"_

_Valerie stared at him, but Tucker hardly spared him a glance. "Shut up," he said, "I'm still mad at you." _

_Danny nodded and said nothing, accepting this._

_"So," said Tucker. "Why don't we all just calm down, drop our weapons, and talk about our feelings instead, okay?"_

_"This is ridiculous," Valerie snapped. "How the hell do you know who I am and why are you protecting him?"_

_"I told him," murmured Danny, earning a momentary glare from Tucker before he carefully avoided the half-ghost's gaze once more._

_"Right," Tucker agreed begrudgingly. "And I'm protecting him because he's my best friend."_

_Danny looked immediately surprised, and for a moment he almost seemed like he would smile, even though Tucker still refused to look at him._

_"What are you talking about?" Valerie practically shouted. "You're best friends with Danny!"_

_"Dude," Tucker sighed, "I just do not get how this is so hard to believe. This is Danny!"_

_As soon as he said it Valerie felt like she'd swallowed a rock._

_She had always noticed the similarities between Danny and the ghost boy, of course. She spent much more time with both of them than most people could boast. But she had always brushed it aside, rationalized her doubt. After all, Danny was alive. He couldn't be a ghost. And even if he was a ghost, somehow, surely he wouldn't utilize his powers for terrorism like Danny Phantom did, right? Danny Phantom was malicious, a dirty trickster. Danny Fenton was the kindest boy she'd ever met. The difference was clear. But sometimes… a smile, a laugh, or even just a look in either one's eyes, would immediately draw to mind the other…_

_"That's impossible," she snapped, trying not to look at her captive with this new information in mind. _

_But then he spoke. He said, "I'm sorry, Val," in a way that was so achingly Danny Fenton she released her hold on him and stumbled backwards. She looked furiously between the two boys a few times. Without another word she hopped on her jet-sled and powered away. _

_Danny slid against the wall to the ground, one hand lightly over his upper chest where Valerie had had her gun._

_"Tucker?__ He asked mildly, not looking up._

_"I'm sorry," Tucker muttered. "I know you need me right now, dude, but I…I just can't right now, okay? I can't."_

_Danny nodded. "Thanks for saving me."_

_"No problem," Tucker said awkwardly. He shoved his hands in his pockets and prepared to stalk off before adding, "And don't think just because I'm mad at you __it's__ okay to hurt yourself. Pull a stunt like this again and I'll _never_ forgive you."_

-AP-

At first Samantha did not understand was happening. There were Danny and Tucker, together, with Valerie whizzing around close by, and she'd called up to them as soon as she'd seen them, eager to see how Tucker was, and to tell them about the ghost back at Danny's house, and to finally feel _safe _after all the running. And then it had started, right in the middle of the open air about a hundred feet up, and she knew what it was because of what she'd been told, and maybe also because she'd seen something like it before.

The sky was opening. It was splitting at invisible seams in great tears that managed to be deafeningly loud while at the same time generating a muffled silence, like ears popping. The sun still shone, but the light seemed dimmer, colder. Samantha's attention was ripped away from Danny as thoughts of he and Tucker and everything else disappeared in light of what was happening. The very sight of it—of the empty air tearing apart and leaking the new freezing, green energy—made her feel faint. Ghosts, for whatever weird reason, she could handle. Ghosts made sense to her. The opening of the portal did not make sense. It was so functionally and ridiculously irrational, so out of place, such a _wrong _thing to be happening that Samantha thought she might throw up.

It was not like this before, she knew. It couldn't have been. There was just no way anyone could forget such an experience, and to Samantha every second of the utter _abnormality _of it felt new and strange.

The other people who had gathered before she arrived—hoping to see what the ghost hunters were up to, she guessed—did not seem to be affected as strongly as she was, although a mother who had stopped with her two children was hurrying them quickly away. Others looked frightened but not willing to leave just yet. Their eagerness to see what would happen next was clearly dominant over any instinct for self-preservation. An older couple stood side by side, their eyes trained toward the sky and looking mournful.

Samantha was immediately repulsed, because it meant that these people were used to it. Portals like this one must open quite a lot in Amity Park. It all went back to what she had been told the night before, about the ghost energy slowly bringing its presence, and so destruction, upon the human world. The notion had sort of made sense to her, but it had not seemed entirely real before this moment. Nor had it seemed so urgent or frightening.

Because, _shit, _this was scary.

Bolts of green energy, darker than the sunlight, snaked their way out of the growing gateway in lightning-like bursts. Her gaze was drawn to them one after the other because they were easier to look at. It gave her eyes something to focus on instead of discerning the strange center of it all, which seemed to be growing bigger and more powerful. Suddenly a wave of cold washed over her, like a wind but with no air, and more of the crowd booked a hasty departure. She fought the urge to turn and run, and instead found Danny again with her eyes. She was surprised at how near he was, but at first her attention had been too overcome by the portal to register he was there at all. Now he and Tucker were making their way to the ground, and it looked like Tucker was leaning on him.

_Oh no_, she thought. Her guilt of abandoning him doubled, as did her urgency to see him for herself. Was he all right? Surely he was just tired from using his powers?

She rushed over, not even hearing someone's half-hearted attempt to call her back where it was "safe." Her path to the two ghostly figures did indeed bring her closer to the portal. She shivered and felt goosebumps trail down her arms.

"Tucker!" she called, "Danny!"

She was about ten feet away from them when they touched the ground, and then both boys turned to look at her. Tucker looked exhausted. He wasn't even solid, and his legs had resolved themselves into a wispy tail. He smiled at her, which made her angry more than anything else. How dare he smile, when he looked like crap and it was her fault and the sky was bursting almost directly above their heads?

Then there was Danny, who she had to look at eventually though she delayed it as long as she could. Now that it came to it she had no idea what to say to him. He had already saved Tucker, and now that this portal was opening he and the others would probably be whisked off onto some other endeavor more important than the strange ghost that was chasing her. She only hoped that whatever happened, it would be nearby, because she couldn't stand to be alone and afraid anymore.

Then she saw Danny. _Really _saw him. The change that had come over him was palpable, crackling in the air like the lightning above. He was standing a little more stiffly than usual as he helped his friend, but only in a way that seemed to disguise barely contained energy. In fact it looked somehow like his body was super charged, and it was only with a great strength of willpower that he kept himself from launching into the air or exploding on the spot. He had gone from looking normal (as normal as he ever did as Danny Phantom) to being wild and unearthly, with his white hair blowing around when there was _still no wind_. It could only be the cold waves from the portal, the abrupt shifts of temperature and energy that were completely unrelated to air currents. Most alarming were his eyes, which she saw last because he too took his time to meet her own. They were green, as always, but brighter than she'd ever seen them. Brighter, older, and lit with a fierce vivacity the source of which she couldn't even begin to understand.

He had never looked less human.

Her instinct was to turn and run, but she held herself in place and met his gaze no matter how strange it was or how her shivers multiplied. It was one of the first times since she'd gotten to Amity Park he looked directly into her eyes instead of pointedly avoiding them. She wasn't surprised to see the contempt in them, or at least she told herself she wasn't since the intensity of it was still somewhat unexpected. He was looking at her like he was expecting something, she realized, as if he was ready to jump on the defense if need be. Looking as wild as he did, bursting with so much energy and then so much negative emotion on top of that, Samantha was truly frightened of him.

What could she possibly have done to him to make him think so poorly of her? Could she really be blamed for it now, when she couldn't even remember what the hell it was? He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, and Samantha was so jumpy at this point she wouldn't have been surprised if he'd just out and yelled at her.

She didn't bother to keep the disgust out of her voice when she beat him to it, but she did manage to keep it steady despite how unsettled she was. "What do you want?"

Then from above came the cry of "Danny, heads up! The damn thing's not even open all the way yet, but we've got company!"

Though he must have heard Valerie's cry from above, Danny lingered, his glowing eyes still trained on Samantha's. For just an instant the anger in them seemed to soften. "DANNY!" called Valerie. Samantha looked up, noting how strange it was to see the portal from this angle. It was resolving into a two-dimensional plane, so that it might disappear if you looked at it from the side.

Danny was pulled from whatever preoccupation had come over him. His eyes still glowed fantastically, but now they narrowed with determination.

"Stay together," he told Tucker and Samantha, "And get out of here if things get too crazy."

And then he was off into the sky, leaving the ground like a rocket blasting off and joining Valerie's altitude within seconds. It was just the strangely juiced up sort of action Samantha had expected with him like this.

_Like what? _She wondered. _How do I know what he's like when he's Danny Phantom? Maybe this is just how he is. _But she knew that wasn't true. She _did _know Danny Phantom. Something kept the thought of him buzzing in the back of her mind, something that must have been important before she lost her memory. It was strangely different from her thoughts on Danny _Fenton_, which were for the most part too confusing to try and think about.

"This always happens to him now," said Tucker, re-alerting her to his presence. If he had noticed the tension between his friends just now, he didn't let it show. Samantha swung around to face him—he was sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk (which was visible through his body) one elbow propped on his knee while his hand supported his chin. And he was grinning up at her apologetically. It was the ironic smile he used when he was joking about things that were really quite serious. Samantha couldn't help but notice how tired his eyes were, like he was having trouble even focusing on her. She recalled suddenly that he'd worn glasses when he was alive, though that was obviously not the problem now.

"What happens to him?" she asked, playing dumb. She was afraid to let him know how much the change in Danny frightened her. How was she ever going to fit in here if she couldn't accept the strange things that went on?

He gave her an understanding smile. "Sometimes I forget too…" he assured her. "Danny's not just a dude with ghost powers, you know? He _is _a ghost. And maybe ghosts were all human once, but not anymore."

Samantha glared at him in confusion. "But Danny _is _human," she pointed out, and was annoyed even further to hear the doubt in her own voice.

"Yeah," Tucker shrugged, "And I think he's a lot more confused about that than he lets on."

"I'm so sorry, Tucker," she told him suddenly, wanting to change the topic from Danny and inadvertently voicing the thoughts that had been in the back of her mind since she'd abandoned him. She immediately wished she hadn't said it so spastically. He was being so nice to her she just couldn't help but blurt it out.

He turned his sleepy eyes to her and shook his head.

"For what?" he asked. "You only did what I told you to." Then he laughed, "I should be thanking you, not many people actually do that."

Samantha made it clear that she refused to be cheered, but she couldn't help but feel the guilt that had clamped over her heart loosen quite a bit. She knew Tucker would not have accused her of anything, but he seemed so sincere about it, and was even making a joke of it all to make her feel better. She hated herself for running out on him, but if it had been anyone else, _Danny _for example, she would never have been forgiven so easily.

"Thanks," she murmured awkwardly.

Up above the portal finally seemed to be settling down. Danny and Valerie were hovering in front of it, peering at the whatever it was they saw within that was hidden from Tucker and Samantha's view where they were on the ground. It was too far away to tell for sure, but whatever strange energy had possessed Danny during the formation of the portal seemed to be leaving him. In its place was good old fashioned anxiety, or perhaps battle eagerness. Whatever it was, it kept him moving, but not in the strange, buzzed way from before.

He and Valerie both shifted, swooping small circles focused around the portal. They were always in perfect sync, and managed not to hit each other without even having to watch out for it. Samantha immediately felt a particular emotion surge within her and knew what a hopeless jealousy it was. She could never have that same closeness with Danny. Valerie could fly with Danny and fight ghosts with Danny and _protect _Danny, while Samantha could do none of those things. Even if she could, she would probably be too afraid to try, wouldn't she? She thought back to Danny's living room—in actuality it had been just a quarter of an hour since she had escaped the four-armed ghost but it felt much longer. Luck had brought the weapon to her hands but she _had _used it, hadn't she? It had been a good shot, and she had managed to save herself. Would she ever have the courage or ability to save others as well?

_Probably not_, she thought, as a monster emerged from the portal. She breathed in sharply and tried to grab Tucker's arm. Her touch met only freezing air, and she realized her fingers had gone right through him. "Damn," she hissed, surprised, and then seeing the look on Tucker's face she immediately apologized.

"Sorry," she muttered, "I just… I think I really need a hug right now." She laughed because it was a ridiculous thing to say, but she found it to be entirely true.

"Me too," Tucker admitted. For just a moment the look in his eyes revealed fear and exhaustion. After a brief hesitation he scooted closer and draped his arms around Samantha, lightly enough that they wouldn't just slip right through her. She shivered but didn't pull away. Somewhat comforted, they each turned their gaze to the sky.

-AP-

It was big and ugly. Danny preferred the big and ugly ones, particularly if they were also stupid. They were so much simpler and easier to deal with. Usually they would find their way through, look around, realize where they were, and begin a great, loud, stomping tirade of destruction through the city. They were easy to find, easy to understand, and easy to fool because they didn't realize that some fast thinking could be just as dangerous as being, say, eighteen feet tall. Sometimes Danny wondered if ghosts like these had ever been human—and if they had, how had they gotten to such a non-human state? Did it reflect how they'd been as a person in life? Or did years of toiling away in the Ghost Zone wear away at the soul until anyone could potentially become a monster? Of course, that was only sometimes.

Most of the time he didn't think at all. Mostly, he found fighting a monster like this gave him a much welcomed break from having to think.

This particular ghost was reptilian in nature, and its size naturally brought to mind a dinosaur or a dragon. It had no wings, but remained airborne easily enough, its massive, clawed arms batting at Danny and Valerie just a bit too slowly to knock either one of them off balance. It was dark but the actual color was indiscernible because of its glowing, green aura.

"What's the plan?" Valerie shouted to Danny. The two of them had fallen into a pattern of flying in quick loops around the creature, keeping it in place. It tried to follow their motions, and often its huge, glowing eyes would cross with the effort. It opened its toothy jaws—which were large enough to snap an SUV in half—and let out a thunderous roar of frustration. Valerie, who had been in front of it at the time, felt her jet sled vibrating beneath her as she swerved to stay on course. "Danny!" she yelled, exasperated. Only he could get distracted from an enemy like this.

She watched as his gaze returned to her from where he'd been focusing on the ground. She didn't bother to glance down herself, knowing Tucker and Sam were still down there, watching, and keeping Danny's mind away from what he needed to be doing. "Let's try and get it out of the city," he called over finally. "We'll go west, to the forest. Keep it pissed off so it follows!"

Valerie nodded, whipped out one of her smallest ecto-guns, and fired it at the creature's head. The blast hit it directly between the eyes, fizzing out against its hard scales. It may not have hurt him, but he certainly felt it. It let out another deafening roar and launched its entire bulk at Valerie with surprising agility. Still, she was much quicker and managed to get out of the way in time. She held her breath as it seemed the creature's momentum would bring it crashing to the ground, but it caught itself in time. Its head turned sharply, almost completely around thanks to its overlong neck, and its eyes narrowed at Valerie.

She was already flying—due west, which she saw now was in fact the nearest way out of the city. She wasn't surprised—Danny had a good mind for these things, even without really thinking about it. She kept her speed at medium power, not wanting to outrun the ghost but staying far enough ahead to be out of danger.

The creature gave another roar, and she looked back briefly to see that Danny had taken his turn to aggravate it. He'd put a bit more punch behind his blast than she had, and she saw where it had hit—a shallow wound on the creature's side was smoking. Then Danny was beside her, and the monster was behind them, its arms and feet propelling it through the air like it was swimming.

"Good thing it flies," Valerie commented when Danny was close enough to hear.

"Yeah," he agreed, sounding tired, "I hope we clear the city before it doesn't want to anymore." Big ghosts were easier to fight, it was true, but they caused more damage. Entire city blocks could be affected while dealing with one, buildings destroyed and people hurt. Danny invariably blamed himself.

"You know," said Valerie. She paused a moment to turn back and send another tiny blast in the beast's direction to keep his interest. He responded with another roar. It was loud; she felt her board vibrating from it again. Probably, to the people on the ground, it was terrifying. "You know," she said again to restart the conversation, "I can't get a grip on what Vlad thinks he's doing." To an outsider it might have seemed strange to discuss other things while being pursued by a giant, ghostly reptile, but then again to an outsider it would have been strange to be pursued by a giant, ghostly reptile at all. To Danny and Valerie, both oddities were quite usual.

Danny snorted. "Who can? He's a nutcase."

"He sent Chaz after Tucker and Sam…" Valerie said thoughtfully. "How did he know they would be there? He must have been watching them."

"Or waiting for them there…" realized Danny, frowning. He glanced over his shoulder at their pursuer. With a nod to Valerie they began to create a curving path, slowing and speeding and swooping around each other to create a more interesting target. They were almost out of the city now, and soon they would have to get serious about fighting this monster. For now they had maybe a minute left to talk.

"You think Vlad is after Sam?" Valerie wondered. Danny laughed depreciatingly.

"I don't know why else he would have chosen Sam's house to attack. How could he have known if Tucker or either of us would ever go there? God, this is a nightmare. It's why I wanted Sam away from all this in the first—"

"Danny?" Valerie interrupted suddenly.

"What?" he snapped back, thought it wasn't her he was angry at.

"I think our friend can breathe fire," she replied calmly.

"What makes you say that?" he wondered. He looked back just in time to swoop sharply to the right, just as Valerie dodged to her left. It seemed the creature had gotten angry enough to reveal this particular ability. A large, intensely hot ball of flame shot between the flying ghost hunters. It dissipated after a few seconds, and the air in its wake felt sizzling.

It occurred to both of them simultaneously that knowing the thing could breathe _fire _would have been a lot more convenient before they started leading it towards an extremely flammable _forest_.

"Shit," Valerie sighed.

"At least it's out of the city," Danny supplied grimly.

-AP-

Samantha was more or less petrified as she watched the huge lizard ghost make its way into the world of the living. She quickly told herself to get a grip, seeing how nonplussed Danny and Valerie appeared as they got on with it, and sensing no particular reaction from Tucker. _This is ridiculous_, she couldn't help thinking, _how can a city function with things like _this _flying around? _She looked around and noticed that finally, the street had deserted. Apparently even the most curious denizens were unwilling to put their lives in _that _much danger.

The answer came simply enough in the form of Danny and Valerie distracting the creature and setting off in a direction with sudden purpose. The thing roared, and the earth shook. It was one of single scariest sounds she had ever heard. Samantha watched the whole spectacle, trying to swallow her fear, her disbelief. She tried as hard as she could to accept what she was seeing as _normal_. Somehow, accepting it was the easy part. She knew the worst of what she was feeling came from fearing for Danny and Valerie, because no matter how used to ghosts and monsters you were this one was _definitely _scary.

Suddenly she felt Tucker's arms around her—it was a creepy feeling, suddenly being hugged when she hadn't felt the arms slip around her first. He gave her a quick squeeze before standing up and stretching. "Well," he said, sounding mildly irritated, "They've flown off after that one, and who's left behind to guard the portal in case it has a brother?" He rolled his eyes.

"Are you sure?" Samantha asked, worried. She got to her feet and found she was a little unsteady. Maybe she wasn't as ready to accept all this as she was pretending. Tucker shrugged.

"I have to be. I'm the only one who can do it." If he was unsure of this statement himself, he didn't show it. Instead he gave her a swift grin and jumped into the air. After ascertaining that he could, in fact, fly steadily again, he assured her, "Don't worry, I'll be fine. Probably nothing else will come through for hours and it might even close up by then. If any come out right away like that it's just 'cause they happened to be right next to the opening."

"Oh," said Samantha, feeling more than useless. Tucker threw her a mock salute and zoomed up toward the portal, peering inside once before beginning a steady pattern of flying around it. She craned her neck to keep an eye on him and wrapped her arms around herself; she missed his touch somehow, even if she hadn't actually been able to feel it. Once again she was left alone while her… well not her _friends_, she supposed, but people she cared about, certainly, went off putting their lives in danger. She couldn't very well do anything about that. It's not as if she could fly, or shoot energy blasts or whatever, or do anything else that would be remotely useful while fighting a ghost.

Probably she was nothing but trouble to the three of them. Obviously Danny and Valerie didn't want her back, and she hadn't exactly been the best companion for Tucker when she'd run out on him earlier. She hardly dared let her mind drift towards what that ghost could have wanted with her… what _Vlad _could have wanted with her. It seemed impossible that she could be important enough to warrant his attention, especially since Danny probably couldn't care less what happened to her.

"I doubt you've got another gun hidden on you," a voice said from behind her. It was unusually frustrated; she was more used to hearing it smoother, slicker. She turned around carefully and was completely unsurprised to see Chaz there, furrowing his brow and gnashing his teeth. His suit was torn and charred looking on his chest just above one of his weird arms, but other than that he seemed unharmed. Really, really pissed off, maybe, but unharmed.

Samantha took a deep breath and made a quick decision. She could yell for Tucker, and he could fly down there and get himself hurt for her _again_, or she could make a run for it, lead Chaz away before Tucker noticed she was in danger.

Chaz had kept his gaze poised slightly upwards to where Tucker flew lazily around the portal. It was clear he was expecting her to call for help, probably already planning how he would pummel the weaker ghost a second time.

So without a single word or sound Samantha turned on her heel and ran.

-AP-

"You know," Valerie said dryly while dodging a deadly swing of the monster's tail, "I thought this was going to be easy. Remind me to stop thinking that because it _never _is!" The creature had landed now, and was doing a good job of making as huge a mess of possible, with its clawed feet tearing up the earth and frequent fire attacks setting the trees aflame. Valerie supposed it _was _a good thing, after all, that they had gotten it out of the city, but this wasn't exactly an ideal fight. She and Danny kept well above its head, although they were aware it could spring into the air again at any time.

Danny didn't respond, probably because he was too busy keeping the forest from burning down. It had been a while since he'd had to exercise his ice powers for such an extended amount of time and it was wearing him out enough without trying to keep up banter during the process. This creature wouldn't have understood anything he said anyway—it was extremely angry at the two of them, and was doing its best to catch them in its claws or at least barbeque them, never mind what trees got in the way. It hadn't said an actual word, but it kept up a steady stream of angry roars that both teens had gotten used to by now. Danny vaguely imagined his ears might ache later, like after spending hours at a loud concert.

Clearly the thing was mindless, lost, confused, and mostly angry. Sometimes it seemed amazing to Danny that ghosts like this could still exist. So often they had a purpose, or a plan. So often they were coming after _him_ or his friends. Then there were ones like these, who were difficult and destructive, but hardly calculating. They were around all the time, he supposed, their comings and goings as random as the entropy that was slowly taking its hold over the town. He was quite used to analyzing every situation, searching for a pattern. Yet still, some things had no pattern.

Like Sam, for instance. His life had had a very acceptable pattern before she'd decided to come back. He remembered her parents, before making it perfectly clear that he was never to show his face around Sam again, saying she might never get her memory back—_might _never. It was unpredictable, but there was always a chance. Now that she had, he wondered just what Sam was trying to achieve by coming back. If she hated him, and obviously she did as she had every reason to, why was she trying to be a part of his life again?

"Wanna keep up with that extinguishing, Danny?" Valerie prompted at the top of her lungs, over another of the creature's roars. Danny started, realizing he'd been floating in midair, lost in his thoughts, and allowing the foliage beneath him to fall prey to another of the creature's attacks.

"I don't have time to bring him down if I have to keep doing this!" he yelled at Valerie.

"I'm on it!" she called back. She pointed her board into a dive and flew toward its head, hoping to give it a close range shot with one of her bigger guns. She fired, quickly swerving to avoid the clawed fingers reaching for her, and didn't look to see what damage she had done until she was well in the air again.

The blast had gotten it in the side of the head, and it seemed out of sorts. It stumbled for a moment, and Valerie wondered if it might fall over and then they could finally just _thermos _the damn thing without worrying about it shaking out of the energy beam, but moments later it righted itself and narrowed its eyes at her, snarling.

"God dammit, I am going to _kill _this thing," Valerie hissed viciously. She activated her weapon again and prepared for another dive, only to see that Danny had beat her to it. Instead of keeping his distance like she had, he swooped right in with his right foot out and ready, too fast for the creature's huge claws and nailing the thing right in the chest. It let out an outraged yelp and fell over onto its back.

Valerie was already good to go with another blast, and tensed herself for the creature getting up again, but to her chagrin it didn't. It appeared that, due to the way it was balanced, once caught on its back it could not very easily get up again. It squirmed and thrashed its limbs, and blew useless balls of flame up into the air, but for the moment at least, it seemed it was helpless.

"I got it," Danny called. He activated his thermos at the creature, and sure enough it was unable to escape. Somehow, and even after seeing it so often it could still seem impossible, its scaly bulk was sucked inside the tiny receptacle. Danny put the cap on and looked around him blandly. Almost everything in the area had a thick coating of ice on it, some of it melting or shattered.

Valerie flew over to him and put her hands on her hips. "One kick?" she asked. "You nailed that thing in _one kick?_ All that trouble and you could have just—"

"It was already disoriented," Danny pointed out unhappily. "And you saw what happened. The dumb thing couldn't get up again."

He slung the thermos over his shoulder and wordlessly headed back towards the city, maintaining a slower speed than was usual. Valerie fell into flight beside him, also saying nothing. They were both tired and dejected now that the fight had ended and the adrenaline was wearing off.

"One kick…" Valerie said again when they had almost reached the portal (where they both knew they were going without having to say it—they had to be prepared in case something else came through), "Sometimes it just seems to pointless."

"Yeah," Danny replied, and Valerie knew that he was not in the mood to talk about it. This only made her grumpier. Complaining always made her feel better, after all, and sometimes it seemed like Danny didn't even know how to complain. She often wondered how he managed to keep everything inside, and when she had begun to know what he was thinking anyway.

She was confused for a moment to see that he was smiling, but when she turned her gaze in the same direction a grin broke on her face too.

"Tuck!" she called. She kicked more speed into her board and skidded to a halt at her friend's side. Tucker was floating lazily in front of the portal, looking solid, composed, and completely in control of what he was doing. It lifted Valerie's mood immediately and she resisted the urge to hug him (because, really, once for the day was embarrassing enough).

"Hey guys," Tucker said boredly. "Have fun with your dinosaur?"

"No," Danny answered honestly, but he was still smiling a little. "What's up?" he asked, meaning _has there been any trouble? _and _how are you doing? _at the same time.

"Not a thing, dude," said Tucker. "I think that was the only one of those nearby this opening. It's lucky—I figured we'd have a whole family of them coming through or something. And don't think for a second I wouldn't have run away screaming."

"Don't worry, I won't," smirked Valerie. Danny snorted. It was a very normal moment for the three of them, Valerie couldn't help but notice. Somehow, floating there with her two friends after fighting a huge, gross, frustrating monster, and still having a portal to guard for several hours, and laughing, felt _right._

Then Danny asked, "Where's Sam?" and it all turned wrong again.

"She's…" Tucker began, but the sentence died on his lips because the street beneath them was very obviously deserted. "I don't know," he admitted, confused. "She was right down there a couple of minutes ago."

"You just _left _her there by herself?" Danny cried in disbelief. "Don't you realize Vlad is after her!?"

"Yeah…" Tucker replied. He seemed bewildered, as if he himself couldn't believe what he'd done. "Of course. But the portal… I guess… I just wasn't thinking. I mean what with… I guess I was distracted…"

"Shut up, Danny!" Valerie growled before Danny could make another angry accusation. "He was _distracted_. It happens, and God knows he had good reason for it! Getting angry won't help anybody. What we need to do now is split up and find her." _Or just let her stay lost_, she added to herself.

"Right," Tucker agreed quickly. "I mean, she could have… just gone home, right?" he wondered lamely.

Danny closed his eyes. When he opened them again he didn't seem angry anymore. "Okay," he said, adopting the tone he usually used for planning probably, Valerie thought, to keep what he was actually feeling as hidden as possible. "If one of Vlad's people has taken her I doubt we'll catch up, but since searching is all we can do… let's go our usual routes. After that, Valerie you take the forest. Tucker, when you're done check back at her house and my house in case she did just decide to go home," although still in down-to-business mode, his tone made it plain that he thought this very unlikely.

"What about you?" Valerie asked, rolling her eyes. Danny's patrol route was twice as long as her and Tuckers' anyway, but she knew he was going to give himself a second task as well.

"I'll check the gorge," he said with a steely resolve. Valerie hid her surprise, but couldn't keep her eyebrows from pulling together with worry.

"The gorge?" Tucker wondered, also suddenly concerned. "Why would they take her there?"

"I don't know," Danny sighed. "Dramatic irony? You know Vlad. Or else it's a good place to dump—"

"_Stop_," Valerie snapped. Danny shut his mouth tight. It was obvious to Tucker and Valerie, who knew him extremely well, that beneath his controlled exterior he was really starting to panic.

"Let's go," Danny said instead. "If you don't find anything, meet up back at the house. If you find Sam, go somewhere where _Vlad can't find you_."

To be continued… (in PART 2!)

Author's Note: I'm sorry, I'm going to stop this here!

Sorry, I know that's kind of a cliffhanger, sort of? My bad. The next part should be coming out really soon! (It doesn't get a dramatic, months-long hiatus like most chapters because it's technically still part of _this _chapter!) Unfortunately this leaves that piece at the beginning making so much less sense… oh well!

(As always, SUPER THANKS to cariadiorarua, MissWriter, YumeTakato, CharmedNightSkye, smarter.than.a.bandage, otakualways, natdrat00, wondergirl101, amanda, Chanel2U, Love Insanity, kitsunefire, and C!!! Thanks so much for your patience. YOU GUYS FTW.)

P.S. Remember that gorge I briefly mentioned in a single sentence a few chapters ago? You're right, I totally made it up. In fact, I'm totally making up the layout for the entire city and surrounding area. And it's gonna be totally important later. Huzzah!


	10. Biggest Blame Fool Part 2

Author's Note: Oh my god. I am so sorry. I don't even know what else to say, except… wow. I severely over-estimated the amount of time and will I would have to work on this during the school year. I somehow managed to accidentally make my schedule so that I had absolutely no free time during my second semester and to be honest, I spent the scraps of time I did have sleeping or studying or attempting to have a social life. So sorry about all that.

I just re-read this whole thing to refresh my mind and came across an author's note that's like "I'm going to college next week!" Funny how the time passes.

I hope you all find your way back, and enjoy!

Obligatory Meaningful Song Lyrics:

_You seem so out of context  
In this gaudy apartment complex  
A stranger with your door key  
Explaining that I'm just visiting  
And I am finally seeing  
That I was the one worth leaving_

--_The Postal Service_

Remembering Amity

Chapter 9: Biggest Blame Fool (Part 2)

Samantha was running. Again.

It was different this time than it had been earlier. Before, she'd had a destination. She'd tore through the streets looking for Danny's house, certain that she'd find sanctuary there, and possibly someone who could help her. Granted, she'd been quite wrong, but during the actual running bit it had been much easier to have a goal.

Now she had nothing. She'd set off in the only direction available to her—_away _from Chaz—and kept going. The ghost seemed unable to fly, at least not like Danny could, and so with the head start she'd gotten she was able to keep pretty far ahead of him. The only problem was that, unlike herself, the ghost was tireless, and sooner or later she would slow down and he would catch up. She needed to find somewhere to hide before that happened.

It would have helped, she thought bitterly, to know where anything was in this damn city.

Presently she let her feet guide the way. They smacked the sidewalk so harshly as she sprinted she could feel her shins aching already, and they somehow found their way down sidewalks and around corners she didn't recognize. Since she'd turned off the street with the portal the way was much more crowded—full of people going about their usual business like it was just any other day in any other town and nobody was getting attacked by weird ghosts.

But it wasn't quite like any other town. This current, aimless trip was giving her a view of the city she hadn't been able to appreciate before behind the tinted windows of the taxi, flying hundreds of feet above it, or searching for Danny's house when she'd been too focused on her goal to notice much else. Now, as she was already so attuned to her surroundings, visually scoping out an escape and all the while keeping tabs on her pursuer, she felt that she could notice every strange little thing about the city around her in minutest detail.

For instance, she noted that people parted and gave her odd looks as she tore past, but the reactions were subdued. Those who stepped out of the way did so subconsciously, hardly caring, even when Chaz rushed by moments later. They'd seen far stranger, after all.

Some of the people themselves weren't so normal—she nearly crashed into a group of fifteen or so older teenagers, probably college students, all dressed in matching blue hazmat and sporting bizarre looking binoculars and beeping equipment. An equally strange older man was lecturing to them as he guided them down the street, and she heard him say, "be careful, they can be dangerous—"and heard the group's excited reactions when Chaz must have flown through them moments later, forcing her to put out an extra burst of speed although she could feel her leg muscles beginning to seize up.

It wasn't just the people that were different: the buildings were oddly reinforced, with bars or retractable steel blinds over the windows, and shops advertising things like "portable ghost shields" or "ghoul repellant," which she couldn't help but doubt would actually work, while other shops of entirely different bent were selling memorabilia of all shapes and sizes: t-shirts, posters, mugs, key-chains, patches, buttons, all glittering from windows decked out in fake spider-webs or glow-in-the-dark decals, looking better suited for a theme park than a normal shopping district.

Finally it became too much. She knew from experience—a few unsuccessful attempts she and her friends had gone through to start exercising—that once she stopped running after a jaunt like this she would not be able to start up again. And she _needed _to stop, soon, and she wasn't sure if her legs or her lungs would give out first. In short, she needed a safe place to hide. She dared to glance back and nearly stopped short to find that Chaz was nowhere in sight. Had he given up? Was it possible that she'd actually outrun him?

Not willing to take the chance, she took the opportunity to dive into a narrow alleyway between two buildings: one of the gaudier ghosts shops with what looked like an apartment on the second floor and a small Christian book store, which seemed to have a successful business in spite of, or perhaps because of, all of the paranormal activity. The alley was disappointingly shallow, only going back about fifteen feet or so before it was cut off by a wall of plywood, and there was nowhere she could take cover. Chaz had only to glance inside to see where she was, and then she would be trapped.

Also, and her already racing heart skipped a few beats when she realized it, someone else was already there.

She was too tired and too out of breath to do anything about it, to even think about running back the way she had come. For a second she tried to calculate the distance she'd put between herself and the portal, and came up with something like twenty blocks. But she'd turned too many times, and had been too focused on escaping, to know for sure.

Currently, she leaned against the brick wall of the book shop and took huge gulps of air: her lungs could not seem to get enough oxygen. Even in such a ridiculous situation a small part of her nagged about her appearance. It had been years since she'd allowed herself to get so sweaty or ruffled. All the while she kept her eyes trained on the stranger, unsure what she would do if he proved to be a threat to her somehow.

He said, "My dear, you seem to have been doing an awful lot of running lately," and it was just as well she was too out of breath to speak because she had no idea what to say to that. Did he know how much she'd been chased lately, or was he just commenting on the fact that obviously she had just been running?

He seemed harmless enough, in appearance anyway. At first she thought he was an old man because of the color of his hair, but upon further inspection she realized he wasn't that old at all—probably forty-something, anyway. And he was very well dressed in a pair of tan slacks, and a dark turtle-neck and blazer. Simple looking, but she had developed an eye for clothes over the past few years and even recognized the designer brand of the jacket. His grey-white hair was pulled into a neat pony tail at his neck.

Currently he was watching her expectantly, like he was waiting for a particular reaction. This was more than unsettling. Did he just spend all his time lurking in alleys, waiting for young girls like herself to run into him? She was paranoid enough at the moment to think he had been waiting just for her.

When she didn't say anything in response, he raised his eyebrows appraisingly. Then an entirely different look crossed his face. Samantha thought it was… _triumphant_, but that seemed so out of place. Was he going to try to attack her? The idea seemed ridiculous to her now. After dealing with ghosts all day she wasn't about to let herself get into trouble with some human.

But he didn't approach her. Instead he looked up and said casually, "You know, there is a ghost very nearby here. You'll want to be careful."

His tone surprised her, as did the quality of his voice. It was so kind and reassuring… immediately she wondered how she had ever thought he might be dangerous.

"I know," she answered. Her voice cracked, her throat too dry from all the running. She cleared it and continued, "There was a ghost chasing me just a minute ago. How did you know?"

He smiled at her: a very charming smile that only reassured her further. "Easily enough," he replied, "I _am_ a ghost hunter."

Samantha's eyes widened, "Here?" she asked, realizing it sounded stupid. But she couldn't help but be curious. Her short stay with Danny, Tucker, and Valerie had led her to believe that they were single-handedly keeping the city safe. It hadn't occurred to her that there were other ghost hunters too, maybe even older and more experienced ones.

The man laughed, revealing two rows of perfectly white teeth. Samantha could sense nothing from him but the deepest sincerity. "Yes, if by 'here' you mean Amity Park. This city is any ghost hunter's dream, and it has been my home for years now. Perhaps you've heard of me: my name is Jack Fenton."

-AP-

Tucker's search wasn't going well. Granted, he'd only been at it for about twenty minutes, but he couldn't imagine just stumbling into Sam or Chaz or Vlad or whoever might have her just walking along the street. He knew Danny had given them the instructions to search this way so they'd have something to do, so they wouldn't just be sitting around wondering what had happened. He was glad for it—it _was _better to be out and moving, even if he knew it was pretty much useless.

Especially since her disappearance was all his fault. He'd been with her. _Stay together_, Danny had told them, which was as good as asking Tucker to protect her. And he totally blew it. Instead of staying focused and keeping an eye on her he'd let his mind drift. Being so near the portal was different for him than it was for Danny and Valerie, after all. Danny sensed the warring energies of portals, but ghosts sensed them because they were attracted to them. The portals opened as a result of an unbalanced universe trying to sort itself out, and it was tempting to return to them, to restore that energy to its rightful place. Even to Tucker, who wasn't much of a ghost.

There had been that, of course, and also naturally what had happened to him while he was fighting Chaz. He'd made light of it to the others as best as he could, just as he always did, but truthfully he was shaken to the core. It was scary enough not having any control over his own body, but switching so repeatedly from being tangible and intangible had given him the bizarre feeling of not being quite connected to the world anymore. It had been extremely surreal.

It was hard to recall the feeling precisely since now he felt perfectly fine. He had noticed that, as a ghost, things did not have long lasting physical effects on him. A human might get punched in the gut and feel it for days, whereas he would feel the initial blow but would not feel it much afterwards. He wasn't tireless, not the way using his powers drained him sometimes, nor was he invincible to attack or injury. But he was not sore or tired from earlier, and it made it harder to believe that it had happened at all, that he hadn't just dreamed it.

Assuming that it had really happened, and that it was as bad as he was trying to remember, he could only conclude that he might be dying.

Quickly and with practiced ease he switched his thoughts to a less threatening strain, although it was still a bit painful. Sam's image was burning behind his eyes, and he tried to refocus and match it with something on the streets below him. He had to remind himself that she had long hair now, and wouldn't be wearing all black.

It was funny how different she appeared, really. Aside from the new style she was physically different. She _looked _older, years older than him though she didn't seem to notice. She was a little taller, her features a little sharper, and, he couldn't help but noticing, in some places a _lot_ curvier.

Despite this, having her around again reminded him of what he felt he could safely think of as "the old days." How much of their old life did she remember? he wondered. Sometimes it seemed like a dream, even to him. Still, whether she realized it or not, she certainly wasn't that much different from her old self. What had she said, about being a fashion drone at her new school? The idea was pretty ridiculous. Sam? Conforming to teen trends? She looked the part, maybe, but not in her eyes. There the old Sam shone clear as day. Especially if she was annoyed at him.

The thought would have made him smile if he wasn't so worried. Sam coming back had been like a dream come true. He'd given up on ever seeing her again, certainly on having her be a major part of his life again. But now that she was probably in trouble, maybe Danny had been right all along. Maybe staying out of Amity Park was the best thing for her.

With that thought buzzing guiltily through his mind, he altered his course and set off for the gorge. If anything, he was likely to find Danny there. And even though Danny's entire being seemed to express not needing anybody, Tucker rather thought that this time was an exception.

-AP-

_God this is pointless_, Valerie thought to herself. She'd covered most of her route already, flying at break-neck speeds to get the chore done with as quickly as possible. Like Tucker, she'd seen right through Danny's orders and knew he was just trying to keep them busy.

It wasn't even toward a legitimate end, as far as she was concerned. Danny and Tucker were freaking out about it, and maybe she herself was a little worried for the other girl's safety, but for the most part she viewed this latest development as a blessing. It seemed that Sam had disappeared from their lives again, as suddenly and mysteriously as she had come back the day before.

She was the only one who could see that letting her _stay _disappeared was the best thing for everybody. If she knew her friends, and you couldn't spend as much time with someone as Valerie did with the boys without getting to know them very well, she could imagine why they turned a blind eye to what was so obvious to her.

Tucker was thrilled to have Sam back. It got his hopes up, like things could go back to the way they used to be before they got so complicated. Or he could at least pretend that they could. He was loving it, and didn't realize that thoughts like those were only going to make it more painful to accept their current reality.

As for Sam herself, she hardly seemed to understand the danger she was in. Sure, she'd gotten her memory back and decided to waltz on home, and maybe three years ago she'd been something of a ghost hunter herself, but it was clear she didn't understand the gravity of trying to undertake the job now. Amity Park had become a much harsher battle ground. There were more ghosts, more _powerful_ ghosts, and now with Vlad running around planning God-knows-what, it was all the more dangerous.

Then there was Danny… poor Danny couldn't seem to figure out for himself whether he wanted Sam back or not. _Of course he wants her back_, she realized angrily. He wanted her back more than anything else, probably. It was so easy to understand why he was acting the way he was toward her, she could have smacked Sam right across her pretty face for not realizing it too. Whatever was happening now, or whatever went on between them in the future, Valerie knew Danny would only be the worse off for it.

_And I'm not just thinking that because I want to_, she rationalized to herself. After all, she hardly expected anything to ever happen between her and Danny. Danny was bottled up so tight she thought that even if he was, somehow, miraculously, in love with her, he probably wouldn't even realize it himself, much less know how to show it.

She remembered a time when it wasn't like that. Back when Danny was younger, when he was still somewhat new at schooling his expressions and keeping secrets. She didn't think she would ever forget the anguish that seemed to resonate through his entire body the weeks following Sam's accident. She remembered him coming to her apartment, coming to explain himself after Tucker, in a bout of grief-inspired apathy, had blurted out the secret they'd been keeping for over a year.

"_Keep the door open_,"_ her father had told her with a reproachful look. Valerie resisted giving a disgusted sigh and shooed him out of her room, closing the door halfway. She and Danny stood facing each other awkwardly until Mr. Grey had turned the TV on in the living room. Boy had he read this situation wrong._

"_What do you want?" Valerie hissed at her erstwhile friend. She kept her voice down, but there was so much malice in it she might as well have been shouting._

"_We need to talk…" replied Danny quietly. Valerie laughed harshly._

"_Yeah, I'd say so. I'd say you could spend a year giving the explanations you owe me. But I don't want them right now. In fact, I don't think I want them _ever_."_

_Danny winced slightly but otherwise looked the same as he had for the past few days: tired, miserable. His eyes remained peculiarly wide, like a curious child. It was hard to stay mad at someone who looked like that. But then again, Valerie was _really, really _mad._

"_I've spent the past _year_ hunting you," she told him dispassionately. She swept a hand around her room, indicating the multitudes of newspaper clippings she'd stuck up on the walls. "And I've spent the past year being your friend," she added. "You didn't think you could possibly _mention_ you're a ghost?" _

_She reminded herself she didn't want his explanations, although in truth she was burning with curiosity. How was it possible? How could Danny possibly be a ghost when he was so obviously still alive? _

"_I'm sorry," he told her. He meant it, obviously he meant it. Part of Valerie, the part that thought that maybe she could be in love with him, wanted to forgive him. But she couldn't. He'd fooled her for too long, he'd _fought _her a zillion times, for God's sake! And yet… he'd never hurt her. He was always trying to get them to act as a team, something she had for a long time perceived to be some kind of trick which could only be a means to his own end, but maybe it was something else. Maybe he simply realized that, working together they made quite a powerful force. _

_Or maybe he just didn't want to fight her, because she was his friend._

"_Sam getting hurt…" she realized. "That was really your fault, wasn't it?"_

_He flinched. Valerie had never seen a more defeated looking person in her life, even compared to earlier when he was going to let her hurt him._

_She took a deep breath and blew it out again, calming her nerves and the anger that threatened to over-take her. There would be time later to beat the shit out of him. _

"_I'm sorry," she said. _

_Danny was surprised. Valerie was the only person to learn the truth of the situation and say something like that. Tucker wasn't speaking to him, the Mansons had forbidden him to even think about seeing Sam again. Even his own parents had been angry, of course not knowing the whole story, but aware that somehow, their son had put his friends in danger. Valerie was the only one who seemed to care that he was guilty enough on his own._

"_Thanks," he said, mystified. _

_Valerie took another deep, calming breath. She would be angry with him later, she promised herself. Right now he needed her._

-AP-

Samantha hadn't felt this relieved for days. Certainly she'd felt safer with Danny, Val, and Tucker, but despite having been away at school she was still quite used to living in a situation where adults were in charge. And despite legally being very close to an adult herself, she rarely felt like one. And so, now that she had run into one—a ghost hunter, and no less one she knew for a fact she could trust, she felt that she could finally relax.

What's more, Mr. Fenton seemed entirely calm about the situation, even as she ranted to him (just barely having the presence of mind to keep out the details of Danny and Valerie's secrets) the gist of what had been happening. Currently she was riding in the back of a shiny black sports car which was being driven by a capped driver. She hadn't thought that the Fentons were that wealthy, but she supposed free-lance ghost hunting like Mr. Fenton did was a fairly lucrative business if it kept them away so often.

"So now this four-armed guy was chasing me, but he disappeared when I ran into you in the alley. I can't believe I out-ran him," she finished. It all seemed like a horrible dream, now that she was sitting calmly on the plush leather car seat. She could hardly even believe how seriously Mr. Fenton was taking it—he hadn't said a word or cracked a smile since she began talking, only nodded his head now and then to show he was following along, his expression calm and his posture suggesting someone entirely in control of the situation. Samantha thought that she could see a great deal of similarity between him and Danny.

"You've had a very trying few days," said Mr. Fenton sympathetically. His voice was as mellow as honey. "I'm only glad you managed to find my son so quickly, he knows how to handle himself in these difficult times." He smiled, and Samantha saw genuine pride shining in his eyes. "Especially if Vlad Plasmius is after you, though I can't imagine why he would be. He and I are old enemies."

"Oh?" Samantha wondered, a little confused. So Mr. Fenton knew about Vlad already? And wasn't he _Danny's _enemy? She supposed that, as Vlad was generally an evil and destructive ghost, it was possible for the father and son to be separately opposed to him.

"Oh yes," continued Mr. Fenton, something like amusement in his voice. "We were friends all through college, actually, but then I ended up stealing the love of his life. He could never quite forgive me for it, and I can't say I blame him."

Samantha did not know quite what to say to that. Obviously it was a sore subject, and not wanting to pry she changed it.

"What were you doing in that alley anyway, Mr. Fenton?"

He smiled at her, his perfect teeth glinting. "Looking for the ghost, of course," he replied. "Unfortunately all of my equipment was back at the house—I only just arrived in town, you see, but over the years I've developed a sort of… instinct for these things. I knew one was near by, and I wanted to investigate."

That was the first thing that seemed strange to Samantha. Mr. Fenton out and about without _any _kind of ghost hunting gear? Somehow that seemed wrong to her, though of course she didn't exactly remember anything about the man. From brief snatches of memory she had acquired earlier she had thought him to be large and boisterous, and Tucker had confirmed this when he'd told her about keeping the older Fentons out of the town for their own good. But she supposed now she must have been confusing him with someone else, because the man before her wasn't anything like as obnoxious as the picture she had been constructing in her head.

"It's _so _fascinating," he continued as if it was a natural direction of the conversation, and eerily punctuating her thoughts, "The way you really don't remember anything."

"I remember some things," she pointed out, a little defensively. To this he said nothing, only grinned, and for some reason this time it did not seem as kind.

"Where are we going?" she asked. She hadn't really paid any attention to where they were going before this—she had been all too happy to accept the ride with him. It felt safer in the car, moving away from where Chaz had been much swifter than her legs could carry her. From their surroundings they seemed to be approaching the edge of town.

"Somewhere safe," he assured her. "Somewhere that I know for a fact certain ghosts have an aversion too. I think it best considering you do seem to be something of a prime target at the moment."

Samantha leaned back in the seat, reassured that she was finally headed to safety. "I wish I knew why," she sighed. "What does Vlad want with me? I'm beginning to think it has something to do with…" but she trailed off, cutting her musings short and turning her attention out the window. It would just be pointless and embarrassing to try to talk to Mr. Fenton about Danny's behavior, wouldn't it?

But he asked, "What is it, my dear?" so gently and kindly that she couldn't help but confide in him.

"Danny's been acting weird," she admitted. As soon as she said it she felt like there was a great weight taken off her chest, because she knew that it _wasn't _her fault, whatever his problem was. At least not now, not when she couldn't remember it. "He's been completely rude and just like, _cold _to me all the time. I think I must have done something really bad before I lost my memory. I must have hurt him somehow, or done something… well done whatever it was that made these ghosts want to come after me."

"Hm," said Mr. Fenton. "Well, I think you're right to suppose that the two are related."

She snapped her attention to him, for a second almost catching again that peculiarly triumphant expression, but it was gone again so quickly she realized she had only imagined it. After all, he was looking at her quite kindly now and he even laughed. "Of course," he chuckled, "I wouldn't know what it was. Danny never really tells me about his personal life, you understand."

"Oh, right," said Samantha, her face growing a little warm. Why had she just said that to Danny's _father _of all people? She hadn't been able to help herself, she was too comfortable and complacent. _Snap out of it, _she rebuked herself. Just because they were on the way to safety didn't mean they couldn't be attacked at any moment. And Mr. Fenton said he didn't even have any gear!

-AP-

It had to be the gorge. The further away from it Danny flew as he followed his usual patrol route, the more frustrated he got. He _felt _it somehow, that that's where Vlad would take Sam if he got a hold of her. He felt it in a way that was entirely different from feeling the chaotic energy shifts of the town, which was a weird mix of physical and psychological instinct. This was something he knew because he knew Vlad well enough at this point to have developed different instincts: to be able to think like him well enough to guess at his plans.

Vlad didn't need a second hostage. The threat to Tucker's life was more than enough to keep Danny and the others in check. And so taking Samantha was nothing more than a childish demonstration that he _could _take her. He could take her, and he would bring her to the gorge because it was the place Danny most associated with her being in danger. Vlad knew that Danny would follow to rescue her, and that going back there, and finding her once again in danger there, would be the best way to hurt him.

Which it certainly would, even though he'd already guessed at Vlad's plan and was trying to prepare himself. And of course, although he was certain Vlad was toying with him, there was still the possibility of Sam getting hurt after all. He couldn't be certain that the ordeal would end with only an emotional punch in the gut: as long as Vlad had Sam she was in very real danger.

The worst part of it was that despite all the worry and the frustration… it felt _good _to be searching for her, to know that her safety was once again his responsibility. It felt good even as it hurt, because it meant that she was really back. Since her return he hadn't really known how to act around her. How could he? Two days and he still had no idea what she was waiting for. So far she'd been fairly hostile, but never openly. Like the way she thought he was despicable but would only tell Tucker behind his back, instead of calling him out on it. Why didn't she call him out on it? On anything? It was driving him crazy.

And why, he couldn't help but wonder above all things, had she come back? True, things had been simpler before she left, and maybe that was the life she'd been hoping to come back to, but after remembering everything… well, he thought that in her place he would have wanted to move _further away _from Amity, not back to it. But then, Sam had always been just a bit tougher than he was.

The thought almost made him smile. He executed a neat loop and kicked an extra burst of speed, aiming straight for the gorge like an arrow. It was there or nothing, he thought resolutely. If he knew Vlad, and unfortunately he knew him quite a great deal better than he wanted to, it had to be the gorge.

-AP-

The car pulled to a stop at a seemingly random place in the road. By now they had driven about a mile beyond the city limits along a curving road that cut through a long grassy area with a few trees that tapered out into dirt and dull rock. Mr. Fenton explained that it was a park, and so protected from further development, although probably in the coming years a bill would be passed and the whole area would be full of condos. It was idle conversation, but Samantha couldn't help but feel bad about it. It wasn't exactly a pretty area, but it was untouched for the moment, and she wished it could stay that way.

Especially when they got out of the car. Mr. Fenton signaled silently to the driver and he turned to Samantha to say, "The road runs parallel to the gorge for a few miles and away from the city, so this is the closest we can go by car."

"The gorge?" she asked, but then she remembered it a moment later. She had noticed it before while flying around with Tucker, and had made a note that she'd like to look at it more closely one day. Now was her chance, she guessed. But why?

Mr. Fenton had already started walking, straight away from the city again. The ground beneath them was hard, richly brown dirt with whitish rocks and boulders jutting out here and there, making it easy to trip if you didn't watch where you were going. There were no plants except for the mean, sparse kind that can live among mostly rocks. It was windier out there, and cold too. They were too far away yet to see the edge, but Samantha felt somehow that it was very nearby—that it might come up so suddenly it would startle you.

It did. Between one step and the next she could see it, as if the ground just split and half of it rose up so she could see along its side. The closer they got the less dirt and more rock there was, and finally when they were almost at the very edge it was all rock—dirty white with veins of brown. Two years ago Samantha's parents had taken her to see the Grand Canyon, and this was nothing in comparison. Still, although this wasn't nearly as large and certainly not as beautiful, it was still somewhat impressive. The other side was far enough off that you might not even hear if someone shouted to you, and it stretched off a fair distance in either direction. The way down was particularly steep and long from where they were standing.

She was most startled when she looked down. Earlier she had supposed there was a river running along the bottom, but if there had been one at some point there didn't seem to be one now. Instead the bottom was full of a bizarre green haze, which gave off the eerie sort of light she was beginning to recognize and churning as if it were water. And she realized that the cold she had felt was seeping up from the bottom of the gorge, and that was obviously the source. A chill wracked through her body.

"Ghosts don't like it here?" she asked. Mr. Fenton hadn't said anything while she'd inspected their surroundings, nor did he seem particularly impressed by the gorge. Instead he'd turned to the face the city again, his gaze pointed expectantly upward.

"I said _certain _ghosts don't like it here," he pointed out, but he seemed distracted.

Samantha found this a little hard to believe. There was very obviously a lot of ecto energy down there. It seemed like the sort of place that a ghost would _like _to hang out. But she supposed he knew what he was doing. Why would here drag her out here, of all places, if it wasn't actually safe?

She looked over the edge again and felt a strange jolt in her stomach. She knew it wasn't vertigo—she had no problem with heights. And it wasn't the weird energy at the bottom either, although that had been creepy enough to give her chills. This was something else altogether, and it was familiar.

It was _waiting_. It was just like she had felt in her dream the night before! And just as she had felt, somewhere, in the very back of her mind, all along. She was waiting for Danny Phantom. Suddenly an image of him popped into her head—flying, his body horizontal to the ground and his hands back at his sides, his eyes squeezed almost shut and his hair blowing back, all of which revealed just how much speed he was pushing. She gasped because _this _was what she had been thinking of, all along, when she knew that Danny Phantom was so important for some reason.

She found herself turning to face the same direction as Mr. Fenton. _Don't worry. He's coming. He'll come in time_.

But that was just stupid. She wasn't waiting for Danny to come rescue her. She didn't _need _rescuing for one thing, and even if Danny knew where she was she doubted he would care enough to come find her.

-AP-

Danny could hardly believe his eyes when he saw the two figures standing at the edge. Was it really… yes, it was Sam! And Vlad, standing right next to her plain as day, his hands in his pockets as casually as if they were out for a harmless afternoon stroll. He wasn't even holding onto to her—she had her back to him now, and seemed to be inspecting the gorge. Had she even tried to escape? Was Vlad keeping her there somehow in a way he couldn't see?

He was going so fast, it didn't take long after that for him to come up to them. He kept a little bit of distance and remained about twenty feet in the air, trying to further assess the situation before he dove right into it. It took all of his willpower to do so—to take a moment to hang back and form a plan. Normally that sort of thing was second nature, but this was _Sam_, and considering where they were… like always just the sight of the sickly canyon set this heart racing.

"Let her go!" he demanded. Vlad only grinned at him infuriatingly.

"Go? I'm not sure what you're talking about. Ms. Manson here has accompanied me here willingly."

"Danny!" Samantha exclaimed when she turned around. The sight of him sent a shock through her system. As much as she'd been trying to reason with herself, she had still been standing there waiting for him. But it had been the last thought in her mind that he might _actually _come for her! What was he doing here?

And for all that he had avoided her gaze the past few days he was certainly looking at her down, his green eyes scanning intensely over every inch of her body. She frowned at him and crossed her arms.

"Sam…" he asked finally, "Is that true?"

"Is _what _true?" she snapped, not having paid attention to Vlad's earlier comment. Vlad looked from Danny to Sam and back again and his grin widened.

"Why don't you come down here, ghost, and have a conversation like a civilized person?" Vlad called distastefully.

Danny snorted. "You're the _last _person I'd call civilized. What the hell do you think you're doing?" his expression went suddenly from mild irritation to one of such hatred that Samantha almost gasped. She had supposed Danny hated her, but she had never seen that expression on his, or anyone's, face before. "I get it, okay, I get what you're trying to do! But it's _enough _now. Give Sam to me, and I swear to God if you hurt her, or if you were even _thinking _about hurting her, I will kill you!"

Vlad was taken aback for only a moment. With each word Danny had drawn closer and closer to the ground, and Vlad found himself taking a step back without meaning to. Then he schooled his expression and chuckled. Danny had been expecting it, but all the same his pent up rage and energy escaped in a wild, frustrated cry. Vlad was startled, but his smile didn't disappear. Danny didn't realize it was happening, but he had in fact just shown more emotion to Vlad, or to anyone, than he had in years. Vlad opened his mouth to comment on it, to lament how passionate Danny had been when he was younger. But he found that he didn't have to say anything to bait Danny—Sam beat him to it.

"Just what is your PROBLEM, Danny?" she wondered. She was so confused and furious she hardly cared that she wasn't making a distinction between him and Danny Fenton, even in front of who she believed was his father. "Ever since I came back you've been treating me like something caught on the bottom of your shoe, and _now _you burst out here like you want to rescue me? Like you care about me, at all?" Her voice broke at the one, but she steeled herself and finished strongly, "And how can you even talk like that to your own father! After all you do to keep him away it's just not—"

"HE'S NOT MY FATHER—" Danny shouted, an instinctive defense, but he cut his own shout short and stared at Samantha in amazement. She still had her arms crossed and was unimpressed by his outburst. Clearly she didn't have a problem with anything she'd just said. This, above all else, was too much. He sank to the ground fully, his feet smacking down painfully hard on the rocky ground because he was simply too confused to pay attention. "He's not my father," he said again, in a normal tone and as a simple statement of fact. He stared at Sam blankly for a moment, then turned to Vlad, who couldn't have been more amused.

"Oh, didn't you know?" he wondered innocently. "Samantha here doesn't have her memory back."

"What are you talking about?" Samantha snapped, "He knows that already." She had backed away a bit from the both of them now, eyeing Vlad and Danny with equal suspicion.

"No, I didn't," said Danny. His mouth was dry, his blood rushing in his ears. He just couldn't believe it. All along he had just accepted it as a simple fact that Sam remembered everything. Her parents had been quite open about their plans to keep her old life a secret from her. There was no way she could have come back at all, could have known to find him and Val and Tuck if she didn't… if she hadn't…

But, he realized, she _hadn't _come looking for them. It had been chance, a mere twist of luck that had brought her and Tucker together, and so brought her back to him. And even the way she had been acting… Until now she hadn't called him out on anything, nor had she done anything particularly hostile towards him. Was it possible… was there any way that she _didn't _remember the accident after all? It was almost too much to believe, not after having been so set in the idea that she knew what he had done, and that she hated him for it.

He hadn't known how to handle a Sam who hated him, so he'd let his actions and reactions run on auto-pilot, forcing himself into an entirely defensive mode so that ultimately he could put off ever _having _to handle a Sam who hated him. But now, he saw, it had all been unwarranted.

Or at least until now. Sam was glaring at him and Vlad with equal suspicion and not a little confusion. "What the hell is going on here?" she demanded.

"Yes, Daniel, what the hell _is _going on here? I think she has a right to know," Vlad prompted.

"Don't act like you care anything about her, Vlad!" Danny snapped.

"Vlad," Samantha repeated, realization dawning in her eyes. She looked over to the man she had thought was Mr. Fenton. He bowed formally towards her, smiling again but this time not bothering to hide the malevolence behind it. "Oh God, I'm an idiot," she murmured to herself. Here she thought she was avoiding Vlad, and all along she'd only managed to be captured by him after all!

"_Tell her_," Vlad said to Danny. And while a moment ago Danny had appeared as if he would rather throw himself over the edge of the gorge than do anything Vlad told him to, to this command he tiredly consented.

"You really don't remember?" he began uncertainly. Samantha only offered a stony expression, and in return he gave her a defeated one. "Okay, well… God, it's hard to just tell it. I mean, it's… well, okay. We were here, you and me and Tucker, and we were trying to beat this really big, really terrible ghost. I came up with a plan… we needed to knock it out, you know? It was too big for the thermos beam, the thing could have wriggled out if it wanted to. But the only thing big enough to hit it with was the wall of the gorge, and… well it needed bait."

Samantha's eyes widened then. She was genuinely interested in finding out what on earth had happened to her. It was almost impossible to believe that it _had _happened to her, since she was only now learning of it for the first time.

"You volunteered," continued Danny wearily. "I really, really, really didn't want you to do it, but you insisted, and… look, the details are weird and you won't know what I'm talking about. The point is: I was supposed to come save you. I was supposed to pull you out at the last possible moment, but I didn't make it in time. And you could have died. At first… I thought you had."

He squared his shoulders, and once again Samantha noticed very distinctly that he was looking at her directly since it was something he had avoided doing. He had avoided looking at her, accepting blame from her, but it was quite clear that he was all too used to accepting blame from himself. Right now he was owning up to it, taking the responsibility onto himself easily, as if it was something he told himself every day anyway. "It was my fault," he concluded. "You almost died because of me, and it's my fault you lost your memories."

"Danny…" Samantha began, but she didn't know how to go on. She didn't know how she felt about the situation anymore, it was so completely different from what she expected. All along she supposed that _she _had done something wrong, but instead Danny was openly admitting that he was at fault.

"That's why I—" he continued haltingly, "That's why I was glad when your parents sent you away. Out of Amity Park, and without me in your life… you'd never be in that kind of danger again."

"You were… _glad_?" she repeated incredulously.

Danny was caught off guard—this was not the part of story he considered to be the issue at hand. "Well, yeah," he admitted. "I mean, not _glad_, obviously, but I—"

"You knew that my parents were going to send me away, and keep all of this a secret from me, and turn me into someone else and you just let that happen?"

"I had to!" Danny insisted, "You had amnesia, for God's sake, imagine how freaked out you would have been to have to jump back into this kind of life?"

"You should have given me the choice!" cried Samantha. "How the hell do you know whether or not I would have been freaked out? Maybe I would have wanted to come back! Maybe I would have wanted to have my _real _life and not some fantasy my parents trumped up! Did you even care—"

"Don't even go there," Danny cut her off. By now the two of them were little more than a foot away from each other, shouting. "Do you have any idea what it did to me when you got hurt so badly? _I _had to take you to the hospital, _I _had to try to explain it to your parents, and the whole time I thought some doctor was going to come out at any second and say you were dead. I couldn't let you get hurt again."

"I see," Samantha said coldly, "So _you _were so upset when I got hurt, you thought it would just be easier on you if I wasn't around?"

Danny's eyes widened as if this had not occurred to him. "I never said that," he told her.

"I'm pretty sure you just did," Samantha pointed out. "I get it. You _wanted _me to leave. But that was so not your choice to make, Danny Fenton."

"What the hell is going on here?" another voice interrupted the conversation. Both teens were startled, and turned to see Tucker and Valerie touching down beside them. Tucker looked relieved to find them both in one piece, while Valerie just looked angry.

"Vlad caught Sam by pretending to be my dad," Danny explained a little more angrily than was necessary. "And he brought her here, like I knew he would, and he—"

"Vlad was here?" Tucker wondered, looking around nervously.

Danny looked all around him, even down into the gorge, before hissing "Fuck," under his breath. More loudly he growled, "I can't believe him!"

"I can…" Tucker muttered, although he still wasn't quite clear on what had happened.

"I don't get it," Valerie snapped, all business. "What happened? Did you beat him?" As an afterthought she glanced at Samantha and asked, "Did he hurt her?"

"_No_," Samantha answered firmly for herself. "He didn't do anything. He just brought me out here, as far as I can tell for the sole reason of making Danny be up front with me for the first time since I got back. If I didn't know already what he did to Tucker, I'd actually think he wasn't such a bad guy. He's been more helpful than any of you have tried to be."

This startled the other three teens—it hadn't ever occurred to any of them to think of Vlad as not "such a bad guy."

Samantha was already walking back towards the city.

"Where are you going?" Valerie asked.

Samantha stopped and turned to face them again—the three ghost-fighting teens with their backs to a cliff's edge, the cold wind whipping Danny's hair and the loose parts of Tucker's shirt. The effect was extremely dramatic, and for the zillionth time she got the feeling of what a perfect picture the three of them made, and how she simply didn't have a place in it anymore.

There was nothing for it then, was there? She had come to Amity Park hoping to find so many things—a home, a life, _herself_. And Danny. For some reason she had been so sure it was all going to be easy. But it wasn't, it was too hard, and she was tired of being angry and afraid.

_I changed once_, she reasoned to herself, _I can do it again_.

And just like that, she did. She blanked her mind the best she could to all of the things she had learned about herself and her old life, and instead she thought of how she had been at the Academy. Pretty, rich, smart, popular. Better than everyone else. Even her friends. Even Trinda. And now _certainly _better than these three.

It was such an incredible change that the three ghost hunters noticed it even before she spoke. "I'm going home," she told them, her voice disdainful but laced all the same with apathy. She started walking again.

Tucker cast an amazed look at his two friends. Valerie was openly dumbstruck while Danny's face was familiarly blank. It had amazed Tucker too to have heard him shouting not moments before. It had been a long time since he had let what he was feeling show so completely. It was probably, he found himself thinking, something of a good thing. If only Sam…

"Sam!" he called after her. "Please, let me fly you back at least."

She didn't even bother turning around. Instead she kept going, and said in the same, horrible, arrogant tone, not bothering to call back as if she didn't care whether or not he heard her, "No, I'll walk. And it's _Samantha."_

-AP-

Vlad smiled to himself as he phased into the lab. He had known from the beginning, as soon as he had learned from a certain giant cat type ghost that Sam Manson was back in Amity Park, that he had to use it to his advantage somehow. Naturally he was entirely aware of what had transpired years ago. The change in Danny had been more obvious to him than most people, considering how focused he was on the boy. Danny just couldn't forgive himself for what had happened, and it was eating him up inside.

And yet he only continued to grow stronger, and if anything more efficient, as if in learning to block out his feelings about Sam he also learned not to let other things distract him.

So Vlad created a situation where Danny's feelings would be so strong he wouldn't be able to block them anymore. That was the hope, anyway. Honestly, when he'd first gotten a hold of Sam (so easily too. He remembered her being a bit more intelligent than that, but he supposed there was nothing for it if she had no memory of him) he'd hoped to take her to the gorge and threaten her somehow, letting his would-be protégé relive whatever feelings of those years ago that had left him to angst so much since then. Instead, he had found that Sam did not recognize him, and after blithely following him to the gorge of her own free will she had unwittingly taken an initiative for him and done something even worse: she hadn't forgivenDanny. He'd left the two of them shouting at each other, but he was certain that it wasn't a conflict that could be easily reconciled. If he took the time to think about it, she had in effect lost a few years of her life thanks to Danny. Vlad himself knew all too well what that was like, and he knew just as well how easy it was to hold a grudge because of it.

Jazz was extremely angry with him. He'd been expecting it, really. He hadn't provided a detailed explanation of where he'd gone off to earlier, and he had half guessed that Jazz would host a full-out interrogation as soon as the driver returned without him. Most of his minions (and his employees) were just as afraid of her as they were of him. He had only just made it back when she rounded on him, materializing as suddenly as if shehad ghost powers herself. "What do you think you're playing at?"

"My dear, what are you talking about?" he asked passively.

She growled and rolled her eyes, no patience for his games at the moment. Not that she ever seemed to have patience for him. "Don't act so innocent, you've been lying to me! I know Sam Manson's back in Amity, and I know what you just did."

"Technically I never lied to you," Vlad pointed out, "I only—"

"I didn't think you had the time to get caught up in petty teen conflicts," Jazz interrupted.

"Ah. Yes," Vlad acknowledged, smiling, "A petty teen conflict. There's nothing like it to distract even the boldest of heroes. And your brother is, after all, a _teenager_. Now that the Manson girl won't forgive him he's sure to be even more distracted than usual. This is going to help in the long run, trust me."

Jazz thought about this carefully for a second or two before concluding, "I still think it's a waste of time."

"Trust me, it was anything but," said Vlad soothingly.

Jazz, as always, was not to be soothed. "I think you're more concerned about getting revenge on Danny than on following through with the plan."

"Well, I think you're far too concerned about protecting the boy. What's it to you, Jasmine, if he suffers a little more?"

They were facing each other head on, the evil mastermind and the girl he relied on most, though he knew he couldn't actually rely on her. The tension between them was palpable, and any other lab workers who had been passing by would have turned and headed right back the way they had come rather than get any closer to the current confrontation.

Jazz looked him squarely in the eye and replied, "Not a damn thing. I've worked too hard on this for too long for it to fall through, Vlad, that's all I'm saying. Stay focused."

To be continued…

Post A/N: OHMIGOD, CHAPTER. DONE. UPDATE. OMG. Okay. So, yes, all that just happened. I'm sorry, you were all looking forward to an update and all I have to offer you is this garbage. And I know we were all hoping that Sam and Danny would make up and be friends once the truth came out but alas… at any rate, some day soon we'll find out exactly what happened way back when, and also what Vlad and Jazz are up to. Hooray!

(Super thanks to: AFY, MissWriter, otakualways, YumeTakato, Musicallity, dessyweird51, storycrazy22, Nylah, KHFREAK14, love comes and goes, Kaydreams, My Dreams are My Wings, Tai Haibara, SiLvEr StRiPs, and Chanel2U!!)

NEXT TIME: The kids try to cope with losing Sam (again). But have they really lost her?


	11. Parental Encounters

Author's Note: Hi again! I know, SO SOOOOON, right? This was an easy/fun chapter to write. It's short, and there's no action whatsoever. There are, however, some further revelations of how things are in Amity these days.

Just so you know—I _knew _things like this were going to turn up, but I figure this is important in particular because I make such a big deal about Val and Damon still being poor. That is, of course, an oversight, although you've probably noticed I am completely ignoring the whole Vlad-takes-control-of-Amity plotline. And since Valerie learned he was evil pretty early on the game, we're just going to say he never bought Axion Labs (he's got his own!) and Damon never got his old job back. I've already apologized for all the liberties I'm taking with this story, but I'll do it again for good measure: SORRY.

I'm so glad people are still finding this—and liking it! Your encouragement is more appreciated than I can say! I would have ditched this long ago without it.

Obligatory meaningful song lyrics:

_I need to know these answers, I need to find my way  
Seize my tomorrow, and learn my yesterday  
I need to take these chances, let my true feelings show  
Can't tell what's waiting, still I need to know  
I need to know!_

_--_That Barbie 'Island Princess' movie!

Remembering Amity  
Chapter 10: Parental Encounters

Flying back to Amity Park was both a relief and exceedingly awkward. For one thing, Samantha resolutely refused to look up at any of them as they whizzed by over-head. She even _walked _differently, Tucker couldn't help but notice. She'd always had a confident stride but there was a certain sway to her hips now that accentuated the curves of her body. It drew more attention to the fact that she had a confident walk, like she wanted you to know it. Ten minutes earlier she wouldn't even had bothered with such a thing.

This was very troubling, but he was also worried for her safety. Would she make it back to the city before sun down? Okay, probably. But would she make it _home _before sun down? There were more ghosts at night, besides which even Amity had normal, more humanoid dangers to look out for. He decided to hang back, invisible, and follow her. That way she wouldn't have to worry about studiously ignoring him, but he would still be there in case she needed him.

He could tell that Danny was tempted to do the same, but Valerie muttered, "Danny, just let her go. She needs to cool off. And so do you," and took his hand, and he let her pull him ahead. He looked as if he didn't realize he was letting her do it, so lost he didn't even know he was being guided. He was like that sometimes, and it amazed Tucker that someone who could lead others so fantastically didn't have the slightest clue how to lead himself. Eventually they picked up speed and were gone, reaching the city limits long before Tucker and Sam did.

Part of him wanted to go with them. It was very lonely up in the air by himself, especially with Sam right below but out of reach. He was extremely tempted to just talk to her already. But he didn't. Whatever had happened between her and Danny had made her angry enough to want to do this to herself—to revert to this other person she had been for the past few years. And the way she'd just blown him off… _No, I'll walk_. Like he meant absolutely nothing to her. Like it didn't matter how happy he'd been to find her again, how much he'd tried to make a place for her here.

It would be better for the both of them, he decided, to just leave her alone. For now, anyway.

When they got back to town he realized he might have to talk to her sooner than he'd wanted to—how was she going to find her house? She had only vague memories of the layout of the city, as far as he knew, if she had any at all. But almost immediately she was able to hail a cab and it sped off in the right direction. He sighed, relieved. Of course she could get a cab. Someone like Sam Manson didn't have to wander the city looking for her own house.

Now what to do? He supposed Danny and Val had gone back to the house, Val probably stretching to the extent of her abilities for the Danny Damage Control on this one. Probably he should get there too.

And yet he found himself drifting not towards Danny's house, but his own. Once he realized what he'd subconsciously begun, he took more mindful control of his flight but headed in the same direction anyway. It was essentially a guilty pleasure of his—to go back to his old house and look in on his parents. He did it quite a lot, actually, more often than he let on to Danny and Val, though probably they both knew or guessed at where he disappeared to every so often. Sometimes he would become invisible and walk around the house, shadowing his parents or just sitting on his old bed, looking around the dusty room and speculating what it could be used for instead, if only his parents would decided to change it. And sometimes, like now, he merely floated outside the windows, watching.

He couldn't tell if either of his parents was home, and so he was surprised when one of the kitchen windows opened and his mother stuck her head and arms out. She had already begun to shake out the dust rag in her hands when she noticed Tucker, who had been too startled to disappear in time. Mrs. Foley let out a small squeak and dropped the rag altogether. Instantly Tucker flew down and picked it up for her, then back up to the window to offer it back. The cloth was in her reach, but he kept his distance as best as he could so he wouldn't frighten her.

It wasn't the first time this had happened. He spent enough time in the house that his parents were bound to notice on occasion. He'd even run into his father on the street one day, but he and Danny had been chasing a ghost and he hadn't had time to do anything but offer an apologetic smile before zooming off.

"Hi, Mom," he said, awkwardly. She hadn't taken the rag yet.

"Tucker," she breathed. Tears were glittering in her eyes already. She dashed her hands to her eyes a few times and then took the rag from him and smiled, trying to get over her initial reaction. "What brings you here?" she asked. She still sounded a little breathless, but he could tell that she was trying very, very hard to make the conversation normal, and he appreciated it more than he could ever tell her. He knew that if he could have, he probably would have been crying too.

"I'm uh, well you know, I just wanted to check in on you guys," he told her.

"Oh," she said, then, "Oh! Your father's still at work. He'll be so upset he missed you!" She looked briefly hopeful. "Can you stay? Until he comes back?"

Tucker considered it. It would be nice to see his dad again too. Maybe he could stay. Maybe he could stay for dinner, watch them eat, and they could talk about what they'd done that day. His family was quite traditional: his mom would talk about her book club, or her jazzercise class, his dad would mention a few details about the office.

And Tucker would say… well he got royally beat by a powerful ghost, completely lost control of his powers, and possibly lost a best friend for the second time.

All of this he imagined in a single second, and he replied, "I'd better not."

His mom said, "Okay." He could tell she was disappointed.

It was for this reason that, for all that he kept an eye on them, Tucker tried to avoid actually talking with his parents as much as possible. It had been his decision to lie. To tell everyone, even them, that he was dead and not just sort of dead. It just made more sense—he could roam the city freely as a ghost, but as a sort-of ghost he would be a curiosity. Besides which, explaining how he had become the way he was, and what had happened to his body… well they couldn't very well do anything to reveal Vlad's true nature, not now that he could seriously harm Tucker at any moment. Besides the old, frustrating problem that revealing Vlad would also reveal Danny.

But that hadn't been all of it. In the beginning, Tucker hadn't been sure whether he was truly dead or alive. Or if he could die at any moment. Or if he'd even be able to get back into his body, assuming they could somehow retrieve it. He still wasn't quite sure on any of those things.

It was better to give them the chance to move on. It was easier not to let them, or himself for that matter, build up hope. It would only make a bad result even more disappointing.

 "I'm… I'm really proud of you, Tucker," his mom told him now, still smiling. Just like he did, he realized. Smiling in the bleakest of situations, because he wasn't sure what else to do. He smiled back. Of course she knew that he'd thrown in his lot with Danny Phantom, and that he spent most of his time when he wasn't loitering around the house protecting the city. Both of his parents knew it, and they were proud of him, and they were worried. Worried about someone who was already dead, as far as they knew, because that's what parents do.

He knew what was coming next. She always asked him, always hoping and not hoping at the same time that he would say yes.

"Isn't there any way you can… you know… move on?"

He grinned at her, trying to keep it as un-ironic as possible. "No, Mom, not yet."

-AP-

Valerie shuffled up the stairs of the run-down apartment building she and her father had called home for almost four years now. She was exhausted. Had it really been all in the same day that she had bombed a calculus test, fought a fire-breathing monster in the middle of a forest, and scoured the entire city for a girl she didn't even _like _much less particularly care about finding? It was too much for one day. It always seemed like too much for one day.

Even these stairs seemed like too much right now. She and her dad lived on the fourth floor. She wondered how startling it would be to their neighbors if she decided to take her jet sled the rest of the way. It would be a lot quicker and easier than making herself keep walking. She smiled at the idea, but knew she would never actually do something like that. The thought of her father's reaction alone was enough to quell the wish entirely.

She had been planning to spend the evening with Danny. He was… well, he wasn't doing so great. It was strange really, how she knew that, because outwardly he wasn't acting particularly different from usual. Serious. Closed off. Tempered exhaustion. But with the instincts for his feelings she'd developed over the years, he might as well have been screaming his frustration. He hadn't been very open about the full details of what had happened, but she gathered it had transpired like this: Vlad had taken Sam to the gorge to mess with Danny, while there Danny ended up confessing to Sam what had happened three years ago (who knew she didn't remember it at all? That was something of a surprise), and Sam hadn't forgiven him. Even though Danny had expected this, had always known it would happen, he hadn't been prepared for being blamed out-right like that… well actually hearing it from Sam herself had been a bit too much for him.

So half-way through their silent flight back to the house he told her he wanted to take a walk, clear his head, and that she should go get some rest. This had annoyed her. Danny liked being alone from time to time, but he usually didn't outright _dismiss _her like that. Further proof that Sam was ruining everything.

When she finally reached her front door it took her a moment to dig around in her back-pack for her keys, and by the time she had the right one poised by the lock the door opened of its own accord, startling her. She even gave a small cry and jumped back, her nerves were so frazzled. But of course it was only her father. She hadn't expected him to be home. But then, it was still early in the evening and he usually worked the night shift on weekdays.

"Sweetheart! I thought I heard someone out here," he said with a big grin. He immediately pulled her into a hug, reminding Valerie that she was slightly sore from earlier, but she didn't complain. Instead she mustered all of her energy as best as she could to smile back.

"Hi, Dad," she said. She was surprised at how glad she was to see him. With her balancing school and ghost-hunting, and he spending so much time working, it had become a rarer and rarer occurrence for them to both be home at the same time. Especially since some nights she didn't bother coming home at all—opting to spend the night at Danny's after a long night of patrolling rather than going to her own home. She even had a few changes of clothes left around FentonWorks by now, in case she needed them.

Damon Gray had, incorrectly, assumed by now that besides spending a great deal of time ghost-hunting against his better wishes, Valerie was also sleeping with Danny Fenton. Not that they talked about this outright, but Val knew he was pretty disappointed in her. Little did he know, she had in fact slept with Danny more times than she could count—on the couch, on the floor, his own bed, and on one memorable occasion trapped in the basement of a collapsing warehouse (but that had been because they were knocked unconscious). Despite all of this she had never, in fact, _slept _with Danny. Somehow she couldn't bring herself to talk about the true complexities of the friendship with her father, though, so he assumed away.

Mr. Gray had given up on trying to control his daughter. He loved her, he did what he could for her, but ultimately he couldn't keep her from doing the things she felt she needed to do.

"I don't leave for an hour," he said cheerfully, pulling her inside. "Do you have time? We should _hang out_."

Valerie rolled her eyes at her dad's blatant attempt to sound "hip." He caught her expression and seemed delighted that she was reacting to him at all. That she was there at all. He indicated that she should sit down at one of the chairs at the small table in the kitchen area and began foraging around in the fridge.

"Did you eat yet?" he asked. "It's been ages since I made you dinner."

"No, not yet. That would be awesome, Dad," she replied. She remembered that she hadn't actually eaten anything since before school, and her stomach chose that moment to growl as if agreeing. Come to think of it she was _ravenous. _It was amazing how coming back to their home, into a relatively normal setting, suddenly made her notice the things she was usually too distracted to think about elsewhere.

"Not much to choose from…" said her father, "Looks like it'll have to be omelets. You still like omelets?"

"Of course."

"Great." He pulled various ingredients from out of the fridge and put a frying pan on the small electric stove-top. Within moments he was expertly chopping up a pepper and an onion. Mr. Gray didn't know how to make a great many things, but he was fantastic at making the things he did know. When her mother had died when Valerie was only a year old, he had made a point to learn at least five basic meals to perfection. Although at the time they'd had the money to eat out as often as they wanted, he thought it was important to have a home-cooked meal now and then.

Presently Valerie was content to watch him, smell the sizzling of the onions as they hit the butter in the frying pan, and try to drain her mind of thoughts of the day. The last part was fairly difficult, but being home, and with her father, made it easier than it would have been on her own.

"So…" Mr. Gray began. He was still preparing things, and so wasn't looking at her. "How's ghost hunting lately, sweetie?"

He knew by now not to ask her about school first, as that was very obviously not his daughter's primary concern. She hadn't told him yet that she would have to repeat at least a few classes next year in order to graduate, but she thought he probably suspected.

"Exhausting," she admitted. "Today we had to fight this huge dragon thing. I mean, I guess it was a dragon. It breathed fire. God, that was annoying."

Mr. Gray tensed, and she wondered if maybe she should have spared him the details of the kind of danger she was putting herself in these days. Then he forced himself to relax: he'd already made his choice not to keep her from these sorts of things. That didn't mean he didn't worry.

"Yeah, that sounds pretty annoying," he said with a small laugh. Naturally, to him it sounded terrifying. They were quiet for a few more moments before he asked, "Are you still going around with that Danny Phantom and the Foley kid?"

"Yep," she answered.

"That's such a shame about him…" her father continued sadly. "And pretty amazing, too. I may be a security guard, but I can't say I'd keep right on protecting the Lab after I'd died. Much less an entire city."

"Yeah," Valerie agreed. "He's amazing."

They were quiet again, and this time Valerie decided to break it. "How's, um, things at the Lab?"

By now her dad had finished the omelet, folded it neatly over and divided it onto two plates. He put one down in front of her as well as a glass of orange juice and immediately tucked into his own portion. It was cooked to perfection. The steam from Valerie's plate brought the warm, breakfast-y smell to her nose and she couldn't help immediately diving in herself. It was delicious.

"Pretty hectic, actually," Mr. Gray said thoughtfully. "You know, I've been nudging and nudging the higher ups to put more ghost protection on the place, and they've conceded to some of my requests, but mostly they still think humans are the primary threat. Honestly I don't know how anyone could live in this town and think that way, but there it is. Even now I don't have enough clout to really change things."

Valerie shot him a sad smile. Her father had been recently promoted to captain of the security guards at Axion Labs, but it was still a long shot down the ladder from his original position as over-all head of security. Being an actual guard had changed him quite a bit, however. While initially he had been hired for his brain, the past few years had forced him to develop physical skills he had merely relied on others for before. This unforeseen upside only bolstered his ever-present optimism.

"I've become pretty handy with those guns you gave me, you know," he told her happily. "I'm trying to get Axion to issue at least one to every guard."

"That's great!" Valerie said with genuine enthusiasm. After her father had begun to complain that ghosts were troubling the Lab more than people, she'd introduced him to a few of the less… _overwhelming _pieces of her vast arsenal. He'd become fairly proficient with a small ecto-ray, and she wondered if she shouldn't teach him to use more things. It was kind of ironic that for all he had originally opposed her ghost-hunting, his job was forcing him to become something of an amateur ghost hunter himself.

"Are you staying here tonight?" he asked casually. The change of subject was sort of abrupt, but she had seen it coming and forced herself not to roll her eyes.

"I thought I would, yeah," she replied. He seemed to relax a little, before frowning.

"I wish I didn't have work."

"It's okay, Dad, I'm really tired. I'm probably just gonna go right to sleep anyway."

"Oh. Well all right then."

She helped him with the dishes. They fell into a compatible silence again, only interrupting it with occasional, normal-sounding questions like they'd been asking the entire time. She didn't mention that she was only planning to sleep here for a few hours before she would have to go back out and patrol her usual route around the city. He managed to only mention how worried about her he was twice. Overall, Valerie was glad Danny had sent her away.

-AP-

Danny's steps did not bring him to a particular destination. He'd dropped to the ground and become human a few moments after Valerie had sped off. She'd been angry, he realized, but at that moment he hadn't thought he could bear anyone's company. Especially his own, but unfortunately that was one he was stuck with. He had thought maybe he would walk the rest of the way back to the house, but when he was a few blocks away he realized that he really, really did not want to go back and sit there in what had been his family home all by himself. Maybe it was silly then to have sent Valerie away, but he was caught in that strange in-between mood where, despite feeling incredibly lonely, you really just don't want to be around anyone else.

So he'd walked right past his front door and kept going, turning corners occasionally and meandering deeper and deeper into the city. He never got lost. He had seen the city from a sky-view so many times it was like he had a detailed map permanently etched into his mind, and could have easily found his way to places he had never actually been to on the ground.

It was past dusk. The street lamps had been on for a while, and the work traffic had already slowed down. Some streets were still pretty noisy, and he made a point to shun the shopping district, or the streets with bars and restaurants. Instead he found a residential area (carefully selected to be nowhere near his or Sam's house) and kept going.

He felt strange, walking around on the ground. It had been a long time, he realized, since he had walked this far at all. Usually if the distance he needed to travel was longer than a few blocks he would automatically fly there instead. It was quicker, easier, and at this point felt more natural to him than what he was doing now. It had even been an unusual decision to _walk _and clear his head, because normally there was nothing like zooming off under the stars, soaking himself in clouds, and looking down on the city he worked day and night to protect when it came to relaxing.

But not now. For whatever reason, for the first time in a long time, he'd wanted to feel completely human.

He couldn't get her expression out of his head. She'd looked right at them when she'd said, "I'm going home," but she might as well have been staring straight through them for all she seemed to care about them. And what did "home" mean anyway? Was she leaving? Would she go back to her school? Would he ever seen her again?

The change in her had been completely unexpected. There had been nothing particular to signal it from one second to the next. It was just as if one moment Sam had been standing there, angry at him sure, but still very obviously herself, and then the next moment a completely different person was there. She even _looked _different somehow, though she hadn't done anything.

He hadn't really paid attention to the "Sam"/"Samantha" thing (of course that was a given since he had been trying very hard not to pay attention to Sam at all), but he'd just figured she had changed what she went by over the years. It had happened to him too—most of his teachers and any of his fellow students (whenever it was unavoidable that they talk to him) referred to him as "Dan" by now, though Tucker and Valerie had never adopted the new habit. And of course he'd known that Sam would have changed: he'd changed a lot too. But it had not occurred to him that by sending her away and not telling her about her past, her parents might have turned their daughter into a completely different person. This _Samantha _who's violet eyes glared and then dismissed you as not worth her time, whose sweet voice dripped venom, and who was so completely disgusted with him she'd rather walk miles to town than get a quick ride back.

All along he'd been so focused on the fact that she was blaming him, even, at some truly paranoid moments, going so far as to believe that the only reason that she had come back was to call him out on what he had done to her. It hadn't even occurred to him to just _talk _to her about what had happened. Two simple questions and he could have figured out she didn't have her memory back. He could have avoided so much worrying, and now… maybe he could have avoided losing her again. If only he hadn't been such a coward.

But he couldn't help but wonder… would it really have made any difference? She hadn't been angry at all about the accident. It was his actions _after _the accident that she was blaming him for. He tried to think back to that time, pin-point the moment when he decided he wasn't going to rescue her from her parents, wasn't going to reveal himself to her. But he couldn't find it, like it'd been sifted from his memories. Those weeks after the accident were blurry to him, yet he supposed so much had happened. Blamed by the Mansons, Tucker, and his own parents, he'd spent a lot of time flying or walking around—sort of like he was now, actually—with no destination and trying to keep his mind blank. Valerie had found out his true identity and he'd hardly been able to work up the motivation to go talk to her.

When Sam woke up it was like he woke up too. And then he found out that she didn't know who she was or where she was, and all the pain and worry came slamming back down again, this time to rest permanently on his shoulders. He couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe that something so drastic, so horrible had happened to one of his best friends—and that _he _was the cause of it. And when he'd found out what the Mansons intended to do… he'd let her go. He'd let them take her out of his life, because he was certain that she would be better off that way.

With no memories and no past, it's no wonder she became a different person. And she had come back, not to blame him, but to try to figure out who she used to be. To be _Sam _again, and not _Samantha_. And he'd thrown that attempt right back in her face, and now she was _Samantha _again, probably forever.

He, of all people, could understand it. A long time ago he had even _literally _been divided into two different selves. At the time it had been kind of silly and exciting, but it was scary now to think how defined the line had been between one self and the other. It was more blurred now—that line that divided the part of him that was a boy and the part of him that was a hero, as was the line between the part of him that was ghost and the part that was human. But he could still determine when he was leaning towards one or the other. They were still distinct enough to be confusing.

Maybe Sam had the right idea after all, then. Maybe he should give up on switching back and forth from protecting the city and keeping up the normal high school teen bit. Keeping up being human at all. It was something he contemplated a lot, of course, but he'd always been afraid to take that final step away from a normal life. Now that he'd lost Sam for good… maybe it was time to let go.

-AP-

Samantha didn't feel as much of a stranger this, the third, time she entered her house. She flicked all the lights on, and was surprisingly relieved to find herself surround by the same empty walls and covered furniture. It didn't feel like home yet. Maybe it never would. But it was familiar, and it wasn't anywhere near Danny, and that was something.

As she made her way up the stairs she tried her best to settle her feelings. She was confused and frustrated. That couldn't be helped. But one thing she _was _certain of was that she was not, actually, serious about changing back into the person she had been before her memories started to come back. She _couldn't _do that, not now that she knew the truth. But that didn't mean that that other Samantha wasn't still there, that she didn't remember what it had been like to be her, and that she couldn't, if necessary, act just like her once again.

 It had been interesting, amusing even, to see how the others reacted to her. They'd seemed pretty freaked out. Good. They didn't have any idea what kind of changes she had been going through, and how much effort it had taken not to simply go crazy from it. She'd _wanted _them to see what she'd been like, what she'd become when they let her get sent away.

And yet… despite enjoying the revenge at the time, she didn't feel quite as good about it now. In fact she found she wasn't feeling anything about it at all, except perhaps mildly guilty. Especially toward Danny, who had closed himself off again as soon as the others had arrived. He must have been feeling pretty terrible if he bothered to hide it. Again, this thought did not bring her any pleasure, despite how angry at him she was. She couldn't forgive him, but she didn't necessarily want to _hurt _him.

Once up stairs she went straight to her parents' room. The doors had been left open, and she gasped once she flicked the lights on. The place was _trashed_. The entire bed looked like it had been caved in, and it had been a big wooden canopy! She swallowed hard, still wondering how she could have left Tucker to go through this… whatever _this _had been.

"At least now it matches the bathroom…" she muttered to herself, and began to pick her way through the debris.

It didn't take long for her to locate her bag under all the mess, although she did get a splinter on a ragged edge of wood in the process, causing her to swear loudly before forgetting all about it once she spotted her quarry. She'd dropped it in the rush to escape earlier. Ultimately there wasn't anything in there that was too important—her tooth brush, another change of clothes and extra underwear, and…

Her cell phone. Her first instinct was to curse again when she saw that the slim, pink device had been crushed when the bed collapsed, but after taking a moment to breathe and really think about it she decided that maybe it was for the best. She wouldn't need all those numbers anyway, if she was really was staying here.

_So I _am _staying here_, she thought.

She was oddly un-worried about being attacked again, even though ghosts had interrupted each of her previous visits to her parents' home. She still wasn't quite sure what this Vlad person was about, but she was fairly certain he had achieved what he'd wanted that day and, for now anyway, was done with her. Why would he have let her go, otherwise? She shivered a little, thinking of how he had disappeared and she hadn't even noticed. How she had trusted him so blindly, allowed herself to be closed up in a car with him, and blithely followed him to—whatever significance it happened to have between her and Danny—a perfect place for dumping a body! Stupid, stupid, stupid.

It just hadn't even occurred to her to doubt his identity, let alone to assume he was Vlad Plasmius, of all people. Tucker had said he was a halfa, and even though she knew that Danny seemed completely human when he wasn't in his ghost form, for some reason she had expected it to be more obvious in Vlad. Clearly it was not, and she'd been fooled just like everyone else who trusted him.

But what had been the point? You'd think he would have had something more diabolical up his sleeve than dragging her out of town and forcing Danny to confront her.

Then she realized that actually was… well, pretty diabolical. All of it—sending Chaz after her, unwittingly kidnapping her, had been to get to Danny. Vlad had _used _her. And she, clueless to what was happening, had played right along into his plans by getting angry, by not forgiving Danny! It was like Vlad had known what she wanted to say, like he'd been able to figure out how she was feeling and had completely twisted the situation to his advantage. …assuming it _was _to his advantage for her and Danny to be fighting. What, exactly, was he playing at?

_I am staying here, _she thought to herself again, more resolutely this time. It seemed like a ridiculous thing to think, looking around the destroyed bedroom. And so it occurred to her that maybe it was time she found her own room. She hadn't been in it since losing her memories, didn't know where it was or what it looked like… would it be the same? Would she find clues as to who, exactly, she was before everything happened? Or would her parents have cleaned it out by now?

Her parents' room was big enough that, despite being the next room over the door to her old bedroom was down the hall and around the corner. She found it on her third try, having opened two other doors before it and found one completely empty room and another an office full of dusty bookshelves. When she opened the door to her room and turned the lights on, she knew immediately that it was hers even though there was nothing in particular inside it that told her this. Like the rest of the house, it had been packed up and made ready for years of un-use. In the middle a large bed was stripped and draped with white dust-covers, a few dark wooden dressers and a matching wardrobe stood against the walls (which were painted a plain beige color), and various boxes were stacked and littered across the carpet, taped shut and unlabeled.

Still, she knew it was hers. All of it. There had been an unmistakable sense of déjà vu when she'd opened the door, and she had the sudden urge to slam it behind her, as if that was something she'd been prone to do when she lived here.

Instead she left it open and settled down on the floor next to the nearest boxes. There seemed to be nothing for it but to dive right in and see what was packed up inside them. Presumably all of it was hers, anyway. The first one she selected was about two feet across. She lifted it carefully and found that it was heavy and very soundly packed—nothing shook around. As she began peeling the tape off she was struck with the bizarre feeling of opening presents.

This would have been a very strange present to receive. Inside the box were clothes—all neatly folded, but apparently only so they would all fit into the box, which had been so tightly packed that once the tape was off the lid popped up a few inches. Samantha was a little disappointed. She'd been hoping to find something a bit more exciting than just whatever it was she used to wear when she was fourteen. Her parents had bought her an entire new wardrobe as a going away present when she'd first gone to the Academy, so she'd never seen any of this stuff before. She decided to put the box aside and find a more interesting one, but not before automatically searching for the labels inside the top-most shirt. It was long-sleeved and entirely black, and certainly didn't _look _like any designer she was aware of, but still…

She heard the noise from downstairs and was so startled she only just had the presence of mind to keep from screaming. Instead she dropped the shirt back in the box, stood up very slowly, and then tiptoed to her door, listening hard.

She knew right away that it wasn't a ghost. The sound had been of the front door opening and, and she had yet to see a ghost bother to use any door. But her heart was pounding all the same, because she knew that what _had _come through the door was ten times more alarming. They would know she was there. She'd left all the lights on, made no attempt to hide her presence. She had been so sure it would take them at a week to come back, at least…

"Samantha?" "Samantha, darling, are you here?" _Her parents!_

Samantha started to genuinely panic. She'd spent weeks building up frustration and fury against her parents. For all that she blamed Danny for letting her get sent away, the true blame lay with _them. They _were the ones who had engineered it so that she would become the sort of daughter they'd wanted: one who cared about clothes and boys and fitting in instead of… instead of… well instead of whoever she was learning to be again, who was a lot more concerned with thinking for herself than any of those things, and who did _not _want to see her parents right now. The second they found her she would be under their thumbs all over again. What if they sent her away again? What if they made her go back to the Academy?

There was something of a hubbub downstairs, and Samantha imagined her parents had brought along at least ten bussers to carry their copious amounts of luggage in. They were probably supervising the process now, but it wouldn't be long before they started looking for her.

"Samantha, where are you?" That was her mother on the stairs already. Samantha made a quick decision, almost without thinking, and ran to the window that faced the street. She opened it as quietly as she could and looked down. A large limo was parked in front of the house, and there were indeed several men in crisp uniforms trailing back and forth from it to the front door, unloading boxes and suitcases. It was a lot, the amount that any normal person would bring along if they were planning on moving in for good. But she had been on vacation with her parents enough to know that this was not necessarily the case. At least she hoped not.

The important thing was, there was no sign of her parents _outside _the house.

So she climbed right through the window, slid down to the little ledge she somehow knew would be beneath it to break her fall, and reached out for the familiar tree branch, a thick one jutting out from the tree that matched dozens of others planted up and down the street, and happened to be located directly outside her window. She wasn't afraid as she shimmied along it as quietly as she could, or as she slowly found her way down the branches and made the final five foot jump to the ground. After all, it was clearly something she'd done hundreds of times before. The thought made her smile.

As soon as her feet touched the sidewalk she set off running, not bothering to be quiet anymore. No one shouted after her, so without turning back she took this as a sign that she was in the clear. Immediately her leg muscles ached, still quite sore from running so much earlier, but she didn't care. This time was much different. She had just escaped from her own house! Right under her parents' noses! It was exhilarating, and she laughed out loud.

Besides, this time she had a destination. Without a second thought she made for Danny's house, a route that this time was much more familiar.

-AP-

It was strange to have to actually knock on the front door. Before this she had just walked in, or Tucker had brought her there. Now the door was locked, and all of the lights were off—even the big neon sign was out. She was still out of breath from the trip, and knew very well that it was hopeless, but with literally nowhere else to turn all she could do was wait, hoping someone would come.

"Come on," she murmured to herself. "Tucker? Valerie? Anybody?"

She glanced around her a little nervously, as if she expected her parents to come after her. It hadn't been dark for more than an hour but the street was empty. The other houses were all lit up, and she could hear the TV on in the one next door, which had its windows open. She turned resolutely back to the door and knocked again.

"Sam?"

She spun around, startled, and was surprised to see Danny standing on the sidewalk a few yards away, apparently having just rounded the corner since she hadn't seen him a moment ago, though she supposed it was possible that he _had _actually just appeared there. His face was shadowed from the streetlamp and she thought he looked very young.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, approaching but coming to a stop at the bottom of the porch stairs, like he had no desire to get any closer to her. His expression was impassive, but she could see the tension in his posture.

_Good question_, she mused. But maybe it was time to stop doubting herself.

"I need to know what happened."

To be continued…

Post A/N: Hooray! More action and less angsting next time, I promise! …okay, so maybe not less angsting, but definitely more action!

(Super thanks to: YumeTakato, Chanel2U, otakualways, A. LaRosa, Nylah, Devilchild93, dessyweird51, Talia Ali Hi! D, enderverse, and storycrazy22!!)

NEXT TIME: Flashback to the accident!


	12. The Accident

Author's Note: We're actually a lot closer to the end than you might think, like maybe a chapter away… but more on that later. For now, the stunning revelation of what happened to Sam three years ago!!11!

Note: Okay, I admit it. The ghost featured in this chapter is just a really huge Taxxon. (If you don't know what that is, then don't worry about it!) I wrote most of this chapter before I ever really planned on developing the story much further, much less putting it up, and now… well, I could change it, but I don't want to. Sorry! (I know, I know, then why did it take so long? Adding in the bits that made it actually fit in with the crazy story that came out of all this took longer than I thought it would!)

Also note: To clear up some confusion, even though Danny is the one telling the story to Sam, some of the events of the time of the accident are written from Sam or Tucker's points of view. So there are going to be a couple things in there that Danny obviously couldn't have known, and obviously wouldn't actually tell Sam if he were telling her the story. But you guys get the whole story because you're special!

Phew. I talk too much. Story time!

Obligatory meaningful song lyrics:

_I've made my mistakes  
I've got nowhere to run  
The night goes on, as I'm fading away  
I'm sick of this life, I just want to scream  
How could this happen to me?_

—Simple Plan (lol, remember them?)

Remembering Amity  
Chapter 11: The Accident

Danny led the way into the house, resisting the urge to look over his shoulder and make sure Sam was following. Or that she was there at all. He still couldn't quite believe he'd found her waiting on his doorstep like that, when he'd been uncertain whether he'd ever see her again at all. He flipped the lights on his way inside. With eyes accustomed to analyzing his surroundings in seconds, he immediately noticed that the wall opposite the couch had a thin, spidery crack in it and wondered where it had come from. When his father still lived there, unexplained destruction around the house was completely normal, even better left ignored if you didn't want to subject yourself to a long, over-excited explanation as to what had caused it.

Even without his dad as an excuse, Danny didn't worry about it. With nearly every nook and cranny of the house stuffed with weapons, as well as the over-all security system that could be powered with a flip of a switch, the Fenton household was probably the safest place in the entire city when it came to warding off ghosts. Plus his ghost sense wasn't going off, so if there had been trouble it was gone now, anyway.

Danny swallowed and quelled his wandering thoughts. There was no use putting this off.

When he turned around Sam was still there, standing awkwardly just a few feet past the doorway like she was afraid to come in any further. Which was ridiculous since she had been there hundreds of times before. Or, he supposed, if she didn't remember all of that then at least she had been there a few times since coming back the other day. Still, her eyes darted around her like she was seeing everything for the first time. When they finally settled on Danny he felt his face heat up and the prickle of sweat on his back. It was unusual for his body to overheat like that since his temperature was naturally a few degrees colder than was normal. But he was extremely nervous, and it couldn't be helped.

"I, uh, have to clean something up," he said awkwardly. "Do you mind…?"

"Go ahead," Sam replied immediately. She seemed nervous too. Danny turned and headed toward the kitchen, but she didn't start following him until he glanced back to make sure she was.

He turned on the lights and she raised her eyebrows at the mess on the floor. Shattered glass in a large puddle of sticky purple something, though the bigger pieces made it apparent it had been a jar of jelly if the smell didn't.

The two said nothing more to each other, and Danny set about wetting a sponge to start soaking up the jelly. Sam finally pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down, looking unsure as to whether or not she should offer to help. Danny kept at his task with complete focus. Of course, he'd pretty much forgotten about the spilt jelly until moments ago while casting about for something he could do that would keep he and Sam from just _looking _at each other.

"Don't you think you should pick up the glass first?" she asked, startling him. He'd been leaning over, scrubbing at the floor, and now he sat back and looked at what he'd accomplished so far (which wasn't much—he'd basically been spreading it around).

"I guess so," he said. He leaned over again, and didn't comment when Sam knelt down and started to help him. He wasn't really sure _what _to say. _Thank you_ seemed a bit empty. He could say thank you a thousand times and it wouldn't come near actually expressing how grateful he was that she was _here. _Well not here, as in in his kitchen, but in Amity Park, with him, and not gone back to wherever she had been for almost three years.

An impossibly long moment passed with the two of them quietly piling up the bits of glass to the side of the splatter. Danny outwardly kept as calm as possible, but his mind was spinning. Three days ago if someone had told him he'd be alone in his house with Sam Manson he probably would have laughed in their face. Well, not laugh. Probably he would not have reacted at all, but inside he would have recognized the improbability of the suggestion. Now he felt like he was in a dream. Even though he could see her, hear her, even smell some peachy scent over the jelly which she must have washed with or sprayed on, it was hard to handle that not only was she back, but finally they were alone together.

Of course he had mused about seeing her again thousands of times before. Sometimes he even allowed himself to have completely silly thoughts, like Sam mysteriously re-appearing one day and rushing into his arms and forgiving him for everything and… and what? Happily ever after? He still wasn't sure what place there was for her here.

"So…" he broke the silence, "What do you want, exactly?"

He was still focused on the floor, and barely glanced up at her. She was braver than him and stopped working long enough to look him directly in the eye. "I want you to tell me what happened three years ago. This 'accident' you all keep alluding to, but no one ever tells me about. My parents told me it was a car accident… a collision… Then you say I was ghost-bait, like I got eaten or something." She raised her eyebrows. "You can see how the stories don't exactly match up."

He almost wanted to smile at the comment, but forced himself not to. His instincts screamed at him that this had to be a trap. Or something. She was so angry before, as furious as he had ever seen her. How could she be taking it so calmly now?

As for telling this particular story… it wasn't going to be easy. He'd never told the entire story to anyone before, except Valerie. And she'd been a sympathetic listener, not to mention completely uninvolved with the situation. This was different. "Well, what do you remember?" he asked, hoping to find a starting point.

"In general?" Sam clarified. He shrugged, and nodded. Better to finally find out what, exactly, she did or did not know. Assumptions in that direction hadn't exactly done him any favors so far.

"Well," she said, taking a breath, "I remember the high school… Casper High, right? And I remember this burger place we used to go to all the time, but I _hate _burgers so I don't know why. And I remember other parts of town, if only vaguely, like my feet could take me to certain places as long as I didn't think about it. I remembered Vlad a bit on the way over here… a little too late for that to be any help, right? I remember Tucker, and I sort of remember Valerie. And you." She finished, but she seemed uncertain for some reason. She narrowed her eyes at him questioningly; like it was his fault she was confused. "You were one of the first things I remembered. I felt like I knew you more than I knew anyone. And I…" she seemed to think better of wherever she had been headed with that train of thought, and instead said, "But I don't think that's necessarily true. I mean, maybe I _knew _you, but I obviously don't _know _you, right?"

"Right," Danny agreed, because what else could he say? He found that his heart was beating rapidly in his chest and he was still too hot. He had been sure that she was about to say she had feelings for him. And then she stopped herself, and said something much more logical.

_Get a grip_, he thought to himself, _You__ can be logical too. _

"So basically," he continued, "You really, really don't remember anything about the accident? At all?"

She thought for a moment and then shook her head. Her long hair was pulled up, but her bangs still hung in her face, half-shading one eye, and they swayed with the motion. "No, I do. Sort of. I remember _waiting _for you. I had this… this image of you, in my mind, flying. Coming to save me. I knew that it was really important." She reported this fact with little expression, but her eyes flashed. Like she was daring him to call her out on her nonchalance.

Danny realized, somewhat hysterically, that the way the two of them were acting they might as well have been conducting a business meeting. A very, very awkward business meeting, but still… neither was willing to let the other see exactly what they were thinking. This had become, in general, the way he operated as a person, but he was unused to talking to someone else who was the same way, and he hadn't expected it from Sam, who usually said what she meant and to hell with what anyone thought of her because of it. Part of him wanted to scream, to yell at her again and get her to break out of her shell too, like earlier. It was ridiculous to act this way around each other. She had to be feeling at least half as much as he did right now.

Instead he continued to regard her coolly, as she was him. Maybe it was ridiculous, but it felt safer than the alternative, no matter how tempting it was.

Besides which, maybe after hearing the whole story she _would _be in the mood to scream at him again.

"Okay," he said finally, "Here it goes. It was the beginning of our sophomore year. Not long after the whole city got taken over by this giant plant ghost named Undergrowth, actually, and you…" He trailed off, noted that she didn't remember that incident either and said, "Well, I can tell you about that later, if you want. But here's what happened when you lost your memory…"

_-Almost three years earlier…-_

When Danny didn't show up for school that day Sam felt like she had a rock in the pit of her stomach. By third period she was so nervous she could hardly sit still, constantly shifting in her seat, tapping the steel toes of her boots, drumming her fingernails. Mr. Lancer was droning on about how the transcendentalists focused on living in the present and appreciating each moment, and she was a million miles away.

She felt a sharp kick to the back of her chair and turned around. Tucker gave her a puzzled look and a slight hand gesture indicating, _What__ are you doing?_ Then he whispered, "Sounds like STOMP going on up there or something." She scowled, glanced forward to make sure Lancer was still planted firmly face-front, scrawling notes on the chalk board, before tearing off a corner piece from a notebook page, writing on it, scrunching it up and casually tossing it over her shoulder.

It landed dead center on Tucker's desk (he always wondered how she managed that without even looking). He unfolded it and smirked. Sam could somehow make sarcasm resonate even in writing. _What, you're a Broadway expert now?_ she wanted to know. He wasn't surprised to find the message beneath the quip: _Danny isn't here_. He carefully took up his pencil and scribbled a reply, eyes darting forward every few seconds to keep tabs on Lancer.

When the paper was flicked back, it missed its target of over Sam's shoulder to her desk by inches, veering off to the right towards the aisle. Sam was expecting this, however, and at the last possible moment her hand shot out and she caught it neatly.

_I told you hes probably sleeping you know he needs it_

Her shoulders heaved a little as if she were sighing, and when she didn't send over a reply Tucker figured she was pissed off. But what did she want him to say? That Danny wasn't in school because he'd finally met a ghost too powerful for him to handle on his own and he was dead? Well he wasn't going to play into her paranoia. He couldn't, because A) he honestly did believe Danny was perfectly okay and B) he wasn't sure what he would do if Sam was right.

Sam was obviously just falling prey to those feelings she didn't want to recognize. He felt his eyes rolling, a sarcastic _'girls'_ resounding in his thoughts. Sometimes they just didn't get it. Although, come to think of it, Danny was being equally dense…

He snapped back to reality when there was the usual rustling of everyone getting their stuff together before leaving class. (Mr. Lancer just couldn't seem to hold his students' attention through those last five minutes). Tucker closed his notebook impatiently, realizing he hadn't written anything down about _Leaves of Grass_, and apparently on that note they were supposed to write a personalized "Song of Myself" for homework, and he hadn't the faintest idea what kind of song that was supposed to be. (He hoped techno.) Maybe he was getting caught up in Sam's anxiety after all.

The classroom seemed to brighten as the bell rang, the students' dull lethargy replaced by enthusiasm in a heart-beat. Lunch time. Tucker almost smiled, thinking of the BBB sandwich he'd be eating in just minutes (that is, bacon-bacon-bacon), and wasn't even particularly annoyed when Sam stood up and left without talking to him. After all, it was probably best if she wasn't there while he was eating, considering her given mood and the fact that he really wanted to be able to finish his lunch without Sam deciding to commit an act of 'environmental justice' and throwing it out.

But he stopped dead when a familiar figure staggered into the classroom and towards Mr. Lancer's desk. Sam was already at the door, but she backtracked to stand beside him, her grudge forgotten between seconds.

Danny looked awful.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Lancer, I—"

The teacher didn't look up from collecting his papers together on his desk. He simply said, "Just let me know in detention, it'll give you more time to come up with something good." Then he did glance up to cast Danny one of his disappointed looks, and his expression abruptly changed. "_Sirens of Titan_! Is that bloo—?"

"Danny! There you are. Time for lunch!" Sam said quickly. She grabbed him by the arms and forcibly ushered him out the door. Tucker followed behind, waving to Mr. Lancer and laughing nervously.

"Let me go, Sam," Danny was grumbling when Tucker met up with them outside, "I had a good story prepared already, you didn't have to—" Sam cut him off, scolding though she was obviously upset.

"Danny, do you even realize what you look like right now? I can't believe you came to school like this!"

Danny looked down at himself, surprised. His clothes were the worse for wear, he supposed, and still steaming in some places. The holes in his jeans weren't exactly stylish but he'd made sure they weren't indecent either.

"What's the big deal?" he asked, "Destroyed clothes were 'in', I thought?"

"Destroyed meaning _tastefully ripped_ not _smoldering_, dude," Tucker informed him. Despite the quip his voice was shaking.

"That's not what I'm talking about," Sam said angrily. Danny flinched when she reached toward him, unable to keep from closing his eyes as her hand tentatively made contact with his face, then traced along his cheekbone with more confidence.

"Look," she said, and now her voice was shaking too.

He opened his eyes to see she was holding her hand up, palm open. He barely seemed to realize what she was trying to say, he could only focus on how weird it was that she had done that: gotten his blood on herself like that, like it was nothing. Sam, with his blood on her hands. It was something Mr. Lancer would have liked to analyze, he was sure, if it had been a scene in some work of fiction or another, but…

Oh. That's what Mr. Lancer had been so shocked about.

"Crap," Danny groaned, hurriedly wiping his arm along the side of his face. "I had no idea that was still bleeding."

"Obviously," Tucker muttered while Sam demanded,

"Why did you even come into class, Danny? You should have at least tried to clean up. We're supposed to keep suspicion to a minimum, remember?"

"If I miss any more of that class then Lancer has a perfect excuse to hold me back a year!" Danny defended himself, almost wildly. A few students walking passed cast the trio awkward glances before going back to ignoring them like usual. Sam was glad that Danny had gotten most of the blood off of his face, though the cut, hidden somewhere in his hairline, had begun to bleed freely again. She bit her lip to keep herself from complaining about that too. For a long time she'd been forcing herself to accept that Danny was going to get hurt every now and then, and if she worried too much she risked sounding like _Jazz_. Danny thought of her as a sister too much already.

So instead of making a further fuss about his safety, she began to point out, "If you're going to come in looking like that it's better to—"

Danny interrupted. He seemed to come back to his senses and lowered his voice considerably. "Look, we'll argue about this later, right now we've got a huge problem."

Tucker paled. "How huge?"

"Um…" Danny narrowed his eyes, apparently doing some heavy mental number crunching. Then he concluded, "Really, really, really, really huge."

"Ah," Sam and Tucker sighed.

"Because it wouldn't have been nearly as exciting with just one 'really'," Tucker complained, but Danny was already leaving, back out of school to either show or tell them whatever this huge problem was. Tucker and Sam followed him, anywhere, like always.

-AP-

The Gorge of Amity (usually called just 'the gorge' or 'the Not So Grand Canyon') was less than two miles outside city limits. Teens drove to its edges to drink or make out, and occasionally danger-hungry rock climbers would take advantage of its impossibly steep cliff walls. Most of the time people left it alone though, since it was not particularly attractive as far as natural phenomena went, nor did it come close to sizing up in color and majesty when compared to its Arizonan cousin.

It was a mile from wall to wall at its widest, and half as deep in some places. There must have been a river at the bottom of it at some point, which was something of a mystery since there wasn't one now, and not any known record of there being one since the area was first settled. The temperatures were also mysteriously cold, known to be around 6-15 degrees cooler than the temperature of the nearby city.

Weighed down with his two friends, it took Danny twenty minutes to fly the three of them there. He touched down far from the edge and took a moment to de-ghost and rest. Sam and Tucker regarded the edge of the gorge warily. From here they could see nothing, but already it was colder and a wind swept up and bit through their clothes.

"So…" Tucker interrupted the silence, "When you say 'enormous centipede monster'… what exactly do you mean by that?"

Sam and Danny shot him simultaneous quelling glares. "Sorry," Tucker sighed, "I guess I'm hoping this is a weird joke and we can all have a good laugh and go back to school."

"I guess we know there's something wrong if you actually _want _to go back to school," Sam pointed out. More seriously she turned to Danny. "Did it say anything to you? Usually guys like this are bent on world domination to some degree, at least. I mean, Undergrowth…" She trailed off. It had been less than a month since the plant ghost had made its assault on Amity. The town, as it was accustoming itself to do already, had quickly lost interest in the mysterious circumstances that had managed to double the plant life in the city and leave a few streets in shambles.

Danny shook his head. "Nope," he said, "Well, I guess I didn't really give it much chance to start a conversation. But it didn't give me one either." He glared down at the thing and reached up to gingerly prod at his head-wound.

Tucker and Sam said nothing, pondering what it could mean that the ghost hadn't talked yet. "Let's get this over with," Tucker sighed, and together they walked the rest of the way.

Despite Danny's best efforts to describe it during the flight over, nothing could have prepared Sam and Tucker for what they saw floating aimlessly along the bottom of the gorge.

It was, in fact, an enormous centipede monster. At least fifty feet long and ten feet wide, its enormous body was divided into bulging, pulsing sections covered in a thin, pearlescent black shell. From their bird's eye view it was impossible to tell which end was the head and which end was the tail, but it was also impossible to miss the legs: there were hundreds, possibly thousands, each three times as long as any of the kids were tall, spindly but alarmingly strong-looking. Its entire body was encased in a familiar, glowing green aura, and despite being quite a distance down they could see from its motion that it was floating, not crawling. Currently it was moving along the bottom of the canyon, occasionally curling back around on itself to change direction as if it wasn't sure which way it wanted to go.

"Holy crap!" Tucker cried as soon as he saw it. He stumbled back a few steps, tripped over a jutting rock and landed hard on his backside. Sam said nothing, but gasped audibly and unconsciously gripped Danny's arm.

"Tell me about it," Danny said blandly, regarding his friends' reactions without surprise.

"I am going to be sick," Tucker said, breathing hard, "Seriously. Look out. I can feel it coming." He leaned over, clutching his stomach.

"I can't believe no one else has noticed it yet," Sam pointed out. She was obviously freaked out but trying to be logical nonetheless. "I mean, it's huge! It is beyond huge, it's—"

"Enormous, I know," Danny agreed tiredly. "My guess is that it hasn't been here for very long. People don't come out here as often in the fall and winter. Too cold."

"But what's it doing?" Sam wondered. She hadn't let go of his arm yet, and Danny didn't comment on it. Their eyes remained glued to the monster below. "And how did it get there? It couldn't have come through the portal, I mean you'd have noticed. _Somebody _would have noticed!"

"I don't think it did," Danny agreed. "And it seems to be just… I don't know it's just…"

"It's just chilling," Tucker observed, curiously. He'd carefully approached the edge again, and stood nervously beside his friends to watch the creature. So far he'd managed to keep from actually being sick, but with one hand on his stomach he didn't seem to be in the clear of it just yet.

"It _is _just chilling," said Danny. "I don't think it knows about the city yet. It can fly higher, or it could earlier when I was fighting it, but I guess it doesn't know how to get out of the gorge."

"Then how did it get here?" Sam wondered. "If it's not intelligent enough to find its way out… and it's too big to have gone through the Fenton Portal… I mean, it couldn't have just _appeared_."

"Stranger things have happened," Tucker mused. But as they looked down on the gigantic, lost-looking bug it occurred to all three of them that _very few _stranger things had happened.

Before any of them could say anything else, an eerie sound emitted from the creature below. It was somewhere between a hiss and a cry, obviously inhuman and oddly forlorn. Sam found herself immediately feeling sorry for it.

"Aww," she said quietly to herself, before more clearly pointing out, "I think it's lost. The poor thing doesn't know where it is or what to do!"

"Please tell me you do not actually think that _thing _is cute, Sam!" Tucker cried, aghast. Danny laughed, but clearly on this one he was allying himself with Tucker. Typical.

"I think she does," he agreed, sharing a knowing look with Tucker, who laughed in turn. Sam rolled her eyes and dropped Danny's arm, opting instead to get closer to the edge. She wasn't afraid of heights, but she still felt a touch of vertigo while looking down. It really was very, very far. The creature made the noise again, this time louder, and she heard Tucker's frightened reaction behind her. But in her case it only made her feel more sorry for the thing. After all, it was possible that Danny had attacked first and it had only fought back in self-defense. And making that sort of noise… clearly it was missing something. Probably it wanted to get home. Maybe it had accidentally left behind a whole family of enormous centipede monsters, the poor thing. If they could find out how it had escaped the Ghost Zone, and lure it back in somehow…

She whipped around, something suddenly occurring to her. "Why the heck would you get so close to this thing on your own? …and how did your clothes get all burnt, anyway?"

Danny looked slightly embarrassed, but shrugged. "I don't know, I wanted to check it out. I didn't know the thing was going to launch itself at me! And I got burnt because it spits out acid, or something like it. From its sides. What's that called again…?"

"Secretion," Tucker supplied helpfully.

"Right, whatever," Danny sighed. "Great."

Sam looked down at the ghost again. Well, okay, so apparently it had attacked Danny first, and apparently it secreted acid, but that didn't mean they couldn't still help it somehow.

"What the heck is it doing now?" asked Tucker, suddenly alarmed.

Sure enough the ghost had stopped hissing. Its mouth, which was presumably as huge and unpleasant as the rest of its body, was far more preoccupied with something else. The three teens watched, amazed, as the creature turned toward the cliff wall with sudden resolution and buried its jaws in the stone.

"Maybe it's blind or something," Sam said at the same time Tucker cried, "It's bashing its head in!"

By now Danny stood closer to the edge too, directly next to Sam. "No…" he said, eyes wide. "I think it's… _eating. _This thing is eating through solid rock!"

-AP-

The rest of the school day was more unbearably long than usual, and the three teens spent whatever time they could discussing what they had seen that afternoon. Mr. Lancer had been too surprised to officially give Danny detention, but he was still late getting out of school. Dash Baxter, noticing that Danny was eyeing the clock and clearly anxious about something, had made a point to blame his favorite punching bag for knocking over a bucket of fish meant for dissection during last-period biology, ensuring that the smaller sophomore would have to stay after to clean it up. Tucker, who was in the same class, loyally offered to help (which didn't keep him from complaining the entire time).

By the time the two boys caught up with Sam (who had given up on them and started walking home) it was twenty minutes after the last bell.

"Formaldehyde," she said to them accusingly as they caught their breath. "You've been dissecting, haven't you?"

"No," Danny assured her quickly, "Just cleaning up dead fish, not cutting them open."

"Right, we're doing that tomorr—" Tucker began, but dropped it when Danny nudged him. "I mean Danny and I will be doing an alternative assignment. Protesting on moral grounds, you know." He winked and shot a very obvious thumbs up to Danny. Sam rolled her eyes and started walking again.

"You know," she said, "It is just disgusting how they still raise defenseless animals specifically so they can be carved apart by students who don't even care what they're looking at! I mean, do you know how easy it would be to create a computer simulation that would—"

"Sam, you're absolutely right," Danny said soothingly. He knew that letting Sam get much further would put both him and Tucker in danger of getting dragged into yet another one of her schemes to change the school's dissection policies. "But I think right now we should figure out what to do with our creature that's still _moving_."

"And eating, like, the entire gorge," added Tucker.

At first Sam appeared to want to argue, but then she sighed and conceded. "Okay, you're right. Anyone had any bright ideas since earlier?"

From their expressions she knew exactly what each of her friends was thinking: Danny had thought of any and all ideas possible, but had dismissed all of them as crazy or impossible. Tucker had probably gotten distracted and not thought of a thing. She wasn't much better off, of course, not having had a single viable idea herself. The only thing to do was to thermos the ghost, but how would they get something that big and strong to stay in the beam? Even if they could, somehow, figure out a way to knock it out, Sam was still convinced it was blameless and would rather not end up hurting it.

"Well, glad to see we've all been so productive," Danny sighed after nobody spoke up. They began walking again, mostly in silence which was occasionally broken by half-voiced thoughts and not a few complaints on the situation.

When they reached Danny's house (the destination all three of them had automatically set out for), Danny turned to his friends before they stepped inside. "Okay, look. We're not going to get anywhere on what we know so far, which is basically that this thing is really big, kind of dumb, and apparently likes to snack on boulders. I've got to take some time to watch it."

Sam rolled her eyes. "_We'll _watch it, Danny. We can take shifts or something, it'll be easier."

"I can get to the gorge faster than either of you, and besides, what if it sees you? It's a _lot _faster than it looks."

"_I can take care of myself_," Sam said pointedly. As an afterthought she added, "And so can Tucker!"

"Don't drag me into this," Tucker insisted, laughing nervously, "I'm fully willing to admit that I _can't _take care of myself." Sam glared at him, but when she turned back to Danny she could tell he was already giving in.

"Okay," he said, smiling a little, "We'll take it in shifts then. I think we should start as soon as possible. The longer this takes, the more likely it is that that thing finds its way into the city."

With that agreement (Tucker reluctantly consenting to the plan), the three finally entered the house. Danny immediately led the way to the kitchen so they could forage some food before closing themselves up in his room for more detailed planning. He grew noticeably nervous when he found his mother there, but relaxed after he saw that she was not, in fact, trying to cook anything. Instead she was seated at the table, dressed in her usual hazmat but with the hood pulled down revealing her short, neatly cut hair. She was completely engrossed in a large book that looked (and smelled, they noticed as they drew nearer) like it was hundreds of years old.

She gave a little start when Danny banged a cabinet shut, having successfully found a bag of chips his father hadn't gotten into yet.

"Oh, hi Danny," she greeted happily. "Tucker. Sam. What are you kids up to today?" All three started to give standard, non-descript answers when she frowned, her eyes sweeping over Danny's appearance. Although he had quickly cleaned up when they got back to school at the end of lunch, his clothes were still the worse for wear.

"What on earth happened to you?" she asked, bewildered. "Didn't I just get you those jeans last week? They're full of holes! And your shirt—"

"Uhm, yeah, but actually. Uh, well…" Danny stuttered to explain. Tucker stepped in smoothly.

"Danny's just being hip," he said easily.

Mrs. Fenton raised an eyebrow. "Hip?" she repeated, a little blankly.

"Right!" Sam picked up, relieved. "That's the new trend, you know. Holes in your jeans, your shirt, your, um… shoes…" She glanced down. Even one of Danny's shoes had a charred hole on the side of it.

"Uh…huh," Maddie said, still sounding a little skeptical. She seemed to be preparing to ask another question so Danny cut her off, hoping to distract her with something she would find more interesting.

"Whatcha reading, Mom?" he asked hopefully.

Immediately her expression changed to one of delight, and she gestured for them to take a closer look at the ancient tome. "It's called _Des fantômes du Val de Loire," _she told them proudly. "Would you believe I found it at a yard sale? It was written in 1736, and it's a surprisingly scientific account of 105 different ghosts the author found in abandoned castles in the Loire Valley in France. The information seems so accurate, it almost makes me wish I could go. Imagine how exciting it would be if the same ones were still around!"

"Really exciting, Mom," Danny agreed. "Well, we're gonna go do homework, bye!" He ushered Sam and Tucker from the kitchen as quickly as possible. As he had expected, his mother had once more been drawn into the book and didn't bother with any further comments on his clothes, or what they were up to. The three pounded up the stairs and, with a certain amount of relief, shut Danny's door behind them.

"I guess you were right about how I look, Sam," he admitted. Her eyes glinted in an _I__ told you so_ kind of way, but she managed to keep from saying it out loud.

"Okay," said Tucker, opening the bag of chips and crunching one decisively. Clearly now it was down to business. "So if we're watching this thing in turns, I'll go first. Because honestly I don't want to be caught anywhere near it in the dark." He shuddered. "Is that cool with you guys?"

"Fine," Sam agreed, laughing a little at his unabashed fear. "Then I'm going next."

"I'll take the night shift," Danny said eagerly.

"Not _all _night?" Sam wondered, ready to jump down his throat again about taking too much onto himself.

Danny, obviously covering up his intentions, said, "No, no way. I'll come wake one of you about half-way through. Guess that's you, Sam, if Tucker's against doing this at night. You can go again in the morning, Tuck."

"And miss school?" Tucker wondered. Danny nodded apologetically, but the action was unnecessary. The next moment Tucker cried, "Score! I mean, if I'm going to skip I'd rather spend the day eating and playing video games, but I guess it's still worth it…"

"I wish I could say the same," said Danny, "My parents will kill me if I have to repeat a class. Actually, if it's Lancer's class I think I'll kill _myself_."

Sam elbowed him. "Don't say that," she chided. Tucker looked thoughtful.

"How does somebody who's like half-dead already kill themselves?" he wondered. Danny was immediately caught off guard, before looking intensely curious.

"You know, I never actually thought about it. I mean, I assume—"

"Okay, stop," Sam interjected. "I'm all for being morbid, but can we focus on what we're doing? Come on, Tuck, I'll get you a cab."

"Sweet!" he replied happily. "You know Sam, I'm so much happier I'm friends with you now that I know you're rich."

"I'm glad to see our relationship means so much to you," Sam said dryly.

"Hey, Sam," Danny asked before they could leave, sounding ever so slightly nervous. "While Tuck's bug-sitting do you want to… I don't know, do something?"

Tucker apparently got something caught in his throat because he began to convulse in a fit of coughing. Both of his friends promptly ignored him.

Sam said logically, "Well, I don't know. Since we're both going to be up a lot tonight shouldn't we try to sleep?" After thinking for a moment she suggested, "I mean, we could sleep together…"

Tucker's coughing fit intensified, to the point where Sam smacked him on the back and growled, "Oh, shut up, that's not what I mean and you know it!" He continued to snigger, but for the most part subsided.

Danny, who managed to look dignified despite blushing furiously, said, "Sure, sounds good to me. I'm really tired from this morning anyway."

"Okay," said Sam, smiling at him, "I'll be back in a few minutes." She dragged Tucker out of the room just as he started full-out laughing again.

-AP-

Around 9:30 that night Sam couldn't help but feel a little relieved when she saw Danny's tiny, glowing figure breaking past the city limits and heading straight toward her. Despite her earlier claims that she could take care of herself, of course she couldn't help but feel a little alarmed this close to the creature all by herself. She'd been keeping an eye on it on and off since Tucker's shift had ended that afternoon, but for the moment she was taking a break by crouching behind a large, jutting boulder. That way she was hidden from its view, and it was hidden from hers.

Even so, the glow from the thing made that whole section of the gorge emit a pale, green light like a thousand dying glow sticks. She hoped nobody would notice.

When Danny touched down the first thing she noticed was that he had brought a jacket, and she was immediately grateful. It was early autumn yet, but the nights had started to get pretty chilly. She was especially grateful when she noticed that it was one of _his _jackets, and slipping it on immediately warmed her up for more than just the obvious reason.

Danny, however, did not seem to sense any importance from the gesture. Instead he immediately turned his attention to the ghost, which was doing much the same as it had been doing all day: wandering around the bottom of the gorge, occasionally emitting some of those terrifying cries, and a little more frequently taking huge chunks out of the rocky sides with a mouth Sam was glad she had only seen once; it was peculiarly round and lined with rows and rows of sharp teeth that did not look like they belonged on a bug. Four red, bulbous, compound eyes surrounded the mouth, but she was still uncertain of what good they were.

"Anything interesting?" Danny asked her. He sounded tired, which she wondered at because presumably he'd been sleeping since that afternoon.

Sam nodded. "Well, it hasn't _done _anything different, but I think I kind of understand why it's doing this. I mean, obviously it's stuck in the gorge or it would have gotten out by now. Probably it doesn't know that there is anything else outside of it. And I think it's… starving."

"How could it be starving?" Danny asked a little skeptically, "It's been snacking all day."

"I know," Sam pointed out, "But still… those cries… unless that's some kind of weird mating call it sounds like it seems to be really upset about something. And every time it ends up chewing through the sides for a while it always seems really desperate about it. Like there wasn't any alternative."

Danny was quiet for a moment, obviously still skeptical. Finally he said, "I think you are giving this thing way too much credit when it comes to personality."

"I'm just telling you what I think," she defended herself, "If you don't want to hear what I have to say then—"

"I'm sorry," Danny sighed. "I spent the past few hours Googling centipedes, giant centipedes… all those little legs are bound to get to a guy before long, you know?"

Sam rolled her eyes, but relented. "You were supposed to be sleeping," she said.

Danny shrugged, "I couldn't, after you left. I figured I might as well do something useful." He looked down at the ghost thoughtfully for a moment before turning back to Sam. "So you think its eating rocks out of desperation?"

"Yes, I do," replied Sam. She was smiling a little, glad Danny was taking her suggestion seriously.

"I've never heard of a ghost that wanted to eat _anything_…" Danny said thoughtfully. Sam shrugged.

"Well we already know this thing's not the sharpest crayon in the box. Maybe it doesn't know how ghosts are supposed to be."

"Okay," he said, "So… do you think it might actuallywant something _else_ to eat?"

"It attacked you earlier," Sam pointed out.

Danny nodded. "Okay…" he was frowning, thinking hard, and then suddenly his expression changed to a bright smile. "I'll fly you home and come back here for my next shift."

She allowed him to pick her up. It was only awkward for a second, and then she settled back in his arms, completely comfortable. His body was cold, and she knew the ride would be windy and even more so, but she had his jacket and she felt warm and happy.

"You _will _wake me up in a few hours, right?" she asked when they were in the air. She didn't have to shout over the wind or anything. Danny was flying slower than usual, and she wondered if it was because she was weighing him down or because he _wanted _to.

"Of course," he said, a little too casually.

"Danny," she scolded, "I swear, if you do something stupid like spend the whole night watching this thing on your own, I'll—"

He laughed. "Relax, Sam. I'll wake you, okay? I promise."

She didn't smile, and said grudgingly, "Good." Danny laughed again.

-AP-

When Danny came to wake her up, shaking her gently while urgently whispering her name, Sam thought she might still be dreaming. For one thing he was a ghost and he was floating, but more importantly his face was very near to hers… not touching, but so close that if she sat up at all her nose might bump into his, her lips might…

She remained frozen, pressed against her pillow. Once he saw that she was awake he backed up a bit. He looked both giddy and tired in a way that suggested the former was a consequence of the latter.

"Is it my turn?" Sam wondered. Her voice was still croaky so she cleared her throat. Then as her senses slowly fell out of sleep and into place, she realized that pale sunlight was creeping through her dark curtains. It was morning already! "You didn't wake me up—" she started to accuse him, but he interrupted her. Whatever he had to say he was pretty excited about it.

"I have an idea!" he pronounced triumphantly. Sam groaned softly, too sleepy for Danny's excitement to be contagious. She wiped her eyes and vestiges of yesterday's eyeliner came off on the backs of her hands.

"Danny," she said angrily, "The deal was that I would take another turn. I don't _like _that you go and do things like that all by yourself. It's like you're protecting me, or something, and you know I don't need—"

"I know, I know," Danny said, impatient, "I'm sorry, okay? Just hear me out. I figured out what our friend likes to eat."

Now Sam's interest was piqued. She sat up and looked at him more clearly. "What?" she asked.

"_Meat_," replied Danny, a tad smugly. "Last night when I was watching it, it dove into the rocks again a few times, and I thought about what you said, about how it was starving. So I figured I would try to find something else it might like. I went back home and dug around, but you know we never really have anything good. I found something in my fridge. Maybe it was supposed to be a pot roast or something, I have no idea because it was really old and gross at this point. I want to see if the ghost would like it."

"I'm guessing it did," Sam said, wrinkling her nose at the thought.

"It _loved _it," Danny confirmed. "I mean, the thing went _nuts. _Even more so than going after the rocks. It was practically the same when it first attacked me. I think what it comes down to is that it will eat anything, but what it _wants _to eat is meat. I saw something like that on the internet, actually, carnivorous centipedes…" He shuddered. "Remind me not to image search next time, those things are seriously gross…"

"Hm," said Sam. Danny sat down on her bed.

"Hm?"

"I was just thinking," Sam replied, her lips quirked, "That I was feeling pretty sorry for this thing. But if it's so desperate to get _meat_ when it can clearly survive by other means, well… I'm not sure I mind all that much if we've got to bash it around a bit."

Danny grinned. "Well good, because a bashing was just what I had in mind."

"How, though?" Sam wondered. "I mean, it's huge. And fast. And it secretes _acid_. Even if you get close enough to hit the thing, it could just turn around and eat you."

"I know," said Danny, "But I don't plan on being the one to hit it. I was thinking of using something much bigger, say… the side of the gorge?"

He was obviously very excited to tell her the plan he'd come up with, which, according to his reaction, must have been pure genius. Sam raised her eyebrows. "I'm listening."

"It's pretty simple, really," he said casually, "I'll just lead it on a chase, fly down there and get the thing to follow me. I'll go to one side of the gorge, and then fly straight toward the other side. Then, just when I'm about to hit it, I'll phase through the cliff wall, but the bug will smack right into it!"

He looked at Sam like he was expecting her to burst out into applause with enthusiasm. Her actual reaction was fairly chilly. She narrowed her eyes and said, "That's insane."

"No it's not," Danny insisted, looking a little hurt. "I mean, yeah, I guess it's a little insane, but it should—"

"Just how fast is this thing, Danny?" Sam asked. "You were really beat up yesterday." When he didn't reply she pressed, "Do you honestly think you can out-fly it for that long?"

It was apparent that this had occurred to him and he was trying very hard not to let on. "Look," he argued, "I don't know if you've noticed, but humans are made primarily of _meat_. As soon as that thing discovers the city we're all in huge trouble! So there isn't a choice really, right? The wall of the gorge is the only thing big enough to hit it with, and I'm the only thing that flies to lure it there. It's not like we can get the thing to fly _slower_."

Sam's eyes brightened in a way he wasn't sure he liked. She threw off her covers and jumped out of bed before going to the window to open the curtains. Sunlight from the just-rising star poured into the room, seeming to fall short of dark painted walls and equally dark furnishings. Her pajamas were matching pants and a tank top which were black with white webs and spiders on them, and Danny couldn't help but notice she looked seriously cute.

"Maybe there is," she said so seriously that he immediately paid attention again, "I mean, I don't know, maybe this would be more dangerous, but I feel like anything is better than you flying right in front of that thing's mouth…" She remembered its fangs, set in circles like all the thing had to do was inhale and anything in its way would immediately be sucked inside and torn to pieces. No, it was much better _not _to put Danny in that position. "I mean, if you could hold onto the back of it somehow, and fly as fast as you can in the other direction, wouldn't that slow it down? Then we could bait it with something else, easy."

Now Danny looked at her like _she _was the crazy one. "Like what, the specter speeder? It's got to_ fly_, Sam." A thought suddenly struck him and he said, "Wait, actually that might work. I mean, I may not be faster than the thing, but I could probably slow it down enough for the speeder to out-fly it. We could… we could strap meat to it, or something! Lots of meat. It would be more interested in that then some kid latched onto its tail, right?"

"Right," Sam agreed, smiling that he was following along with her idea even though the idea of using that much meat for anything made her feel a bit sick. Then Danny's face fell.

"Never mind," he sighed, "I've seen this thing in action. As soon as the speeder swerves to avoid the cliff, it'll follow and do the same. That won't work. Unless… unless the speeder crashes!"

"What?" Sam asked, bewildered.

Now it was Danny's turn to jump up excitedly. He started pacing around, and probably didn't notice that his feet weren't even touching the floor as he did so. "I'll hold onto the thing for the chase, and then I'll let go just in time to pull whoever it is out of the speeder. The speeder will crash, the ghost will crash, but we'll be home free! And we'll need a third person to be ready to thermos the thing as soon as it's out."

Sam grabbed one of his arms to stop his pacing, and looked up at him very carefully. "Do you really think you'd be able to make it in time?"

"Of course!" Danny said, brushing her off. "And what else can we do? We have to get this over with as soon as possible." He thought for a moment before brightening. "Tonight. My parents have a job on the other side of town. They'll be nowhere near the gorge, and with them out the house we can steal the speeder."

"Won't they be mad you trashed it?"

Danny shrugged, "Not after I tell them about the ghost. They always get so proud when they catch me ghost hunting." He threw her an ironic smile and she laughed. "Anyway, it'll give my dad an excuse to build a new one. Worst thing that will happen is that I'll be grounded, and it's not like they can keep me in anyway."

For a moment the two teens just looked at each other. It was a pretty crazy plan, they both realized, and it had been concocted a little after five in the morning by a kid who had gotten virtually no sleep and a girl who was a little biased about keeping her friend out of direct danger. Still, it was all either of them could think to do, and the more they visualized it the more the plan seemed like it would be easy.

"So that's it, then?" Sam asked.

Danny nodded, grinning. "Let's go wake Tucker!"

-AP-

Tucker seemed even less excited about the plan than Sam had been about Danny's original one. When they told him, he pulled his covers over his head like he would be safe from them there. "Oh god," he said, his voice muffled, "That's the craziest plan ever. Are we really doing this?"

"Yep," Sam and Danny replied simultaneously.

Slowly he emerged, eyeing his friends warily as if either of them might attack him at any moment. Then he sighed. "Okay…"

"Good," said Danny, "So, we need someone to play bait and someone to be ready with the thermos."

Tucker sat up, looking more and more unhappy with each passing second. Reluctantly he said, "Well, clearly it's the man's duty to take on the dangerous job… God, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'll—"

"I volunteer as bait," Sam cut him off.

"No," the boys said together without even looking at her. Sam glared at them.

"Why, because I'm a _girl_? Look, I know the whole thing _seems _pretty dangerous—"

"_Seems _dangerous?" Tucker cut in. "You think a high speed chase with an huge carnivorous centipede with MEAT strapped to your ship only _seems _dangerous?"

She crossed her arms. "I trust Danny. It'll be _fine_."

But now Danny looked doubtful. He said, "I don't know Sam. Maybe this isn't such a good idea after all. I mean, we're tired, maybe we should…"

But she was hearing none of it. "What, now _you're _the rational one? _I'm _the one who always has to knock sense into the two of you! You thought it was a good idea because it's our _only _idea. And we have to do something before that thing attacks the city. That means as soon as possible. If you're saying that's tonight, then let's just do it. And anyway," she continued, before either of her friends could interject, "It pretty much _has _to be me. This isn't just going to be a straight line flight, it's going to take some maneuvering. You _know _I have better reflexes than you, Tucker." He thought for a moment, probably recalling how thoroughly Sam could thrash either of them at video games, before nodding reluctantly.

Now she turned to Danny. "Let me do this," she insisted.

Danny sighed. "Okay."

-AP-

Danny figured the hardest part would be actually holding onto the ghost. In the end, he decided the best thing to do would be to strap himself to it somehow. Besides its countless legs, he noticed it had two pincher like parts the stuck out at the back. So he dug out some bungee cord from his parents equipment, and spent much of the day after school learning to _very quickly _tie a secure knot with just one hand. Meanwhile they gave Tucker the job of getting enough meat. He got discounts at the butcher shop for being a frequent customer, which Sam admitted was useful as much as it disturbed her. She herself hid in Danny's basement, familiarizing herself with the controls of the speeder. It was meant to navigate through the ghost zone, but would work basically the same in the human world. The control panel was a little complicated, but Mr. Fenton had for the most part designed it to function the same way a car did.

Danny had to make the speeder intangible to get it out of the house. They flew to the gorge as soon as Danny's parents had left at sunset, Mr. Fenton babbling excitedly about all the equipment he was bringing along. Danny figured that someone had to be pretty desperate to actually call on his notoriously… enthusiastic… parents to solve a ghost problem, and thought that maybe, after this whole centipede monster business was over with, he would go check it out himself. Then again, he was running only on a three hour nap he had taken the day before, and instead thought maybe as soon as they had dealt with the ghost he would like to pass out on his bed.

With all three of them in position, he took a deep breath, his coil of bungee cord slung over his shoulder, and flew down into the gorge. Tucker had come up with the way he could attach himself to the ghost: first he would throw a pretty big piece of meat in front of it, enough to distract it while he tied himself on. This part of the plan, which he had been worried about the most, went surprisingly well. As soon as the ghost saw—or smelt or however it sensed—the meat it set upon it ravenously, and paid no attention to Danny as he quickly came up behind it and lashed his arm to one of its pinchers. Acid dripped down from its body onto his skin and he hissed when it burnt. He also realized belatedly that this put him in prime range of the _other _pincher, but there was nothing he could do about that now. He yawned despite the adrenaline coursing through his body, and looked up expectantly to the top of the gorge. Sam had to make her move soon before the ghost noticed what he had done.

She did. She navigated the speeder down into the gorge, executing a few quick turns with precision. Danny was impressed—she really was quite good at that sort of thing. But then he had no more time to be impressed, or in fact think about much of anything, because of course the speeder had been a bit altered for the operation. Thanks to Tucker, about twenty pounds of raw beef and pork had been tied onto it. It was dripping, and pretty darn disgusting, and it caught the ghost's attention immediately.

The centipede launched itself after the speeder, whipping Danny behind it wildly, and for the first few seconds he was too shocked to do anything. Then he realized his mistake, and gritting his teeth he began to fly. At first it seemed like this was having no effect whatsoever and he panicked. Being pulled around so quickly and facing the wrong direction, he had no idea what Sam was up to or even if the ghost had gotten to her already. The thing was still moving, still chasing, so she must still be okay. But she wouldn't be for long if he didn't get this to _work_. He forced his body to be parallel to the ground, as best as he could tell where the ground was, and flew harder than he ever had before. It was definitely a strain, but besides his arm he couldn't tell what, exactly, he was straining against. Flying came so easily and naturally to him he'd never before had to think about the physicality of it. Now it was taking such a great effort, he wondered how long he would be able to keep it up.

To his immense relief, he felt the ghost slowing down. He focused his tired mind as best as he could on flying in exactly the opposite direction it was trying to take, and sure enough it began to work. But he couldn't let his guard down. He had to pay attention to the exact moment Sam made her move toward the other side of the gorge, because then he would have to phase through his bindings and get her out. He'd been worried about it before, obviously it was a very dangerous part of the plan. But it wasn't until now, when they were finally doing it, that he realized just how difficult it was going to be for him to make it in time. He was too tired, slowing down the ghost was too hard. He wasn't ready.

But he had to be.

-AP-

Sam wasn't particularly worried when she finally turned to face the opposite edge of the gorge. There was no space for worrying, her entire body was consumed in adrenaline from the chase. She would reach the other side in less than a minute.

This was arguably one of the craziest and most dangerous things she'd ever done. But it didn't matter. She knew she wasn't going to be in the speeder when it crashed, and she knew she certainly wasn't going to end up eaten by the ghost. Danny would come for her. Even now he was probably letting go of the thing and zooming to save her. She pictured it, and in her head it was in slow motion, and maybe a little over-dramatic. Certainly more romantic than the rescue was _actually _going to be, but she couldn't help it. Any second now she would feel his arms around her, pulling her to safety.

She'd never driven anything much before this, but with the cliff wall drawing nearer and nearer she instinctively wanted to swerve and avoid it.

With one foot firmly accelerating, she took her hands off the controls so she wouldn't.

-AP-

Tucker was standing in the bottom of the gorge, and far enough away that he saw the crash before he heard it. It had been a safety precaution, positioning him so far away, in case the ghost saw him and got distracted. One moment the speeder was in the air, intact, flying at full speed. The monster was right on its tail. Then it wasn't the speeder anymore, it was wreckage. It had flattened against the cliff wall, shards of glass and metal and plastic leaking off and bounding to the ground. The impact had left it so deeply embedded in the cliff it did not fall right away, and by then it was too late.

The monster had crashed right after it. Its head hit first, and Tucker could see that even then it began to consume the speeder. Then the rest of its body hit, smashing in on itself in a longitudinal wave. Its bulbous skin burst in some places, leaking the disgusting fluid it secreted as pound after pound of flesh followed into the original impact. Its multitude of legs still flailed. And then it wasn't in the air anymore, it was falling, sinking to the floor of the gorge in a series of tremendous crashes.

Tucker saw it all, blankly, like his brain had shut down just enough to keep him from truly feeling the horror he should have been. His eyes fell on the creature, then up to where some of the specter speeder remained smashed into the cliff. It seemed to be emitting a greenish glow, he noted vaguely.

Then Danny and Sam appeared and his thoughts were working again. Danny was a wreck, his costume torn and burnt, and covered in the sticky, burning goo of the creature. He looked like he was doing his best not to get any on Sam. She was unconscious in his arms, her head falling back completely like a new born or a dead person. As he flew nearer Tucker could see that she was bleeding, and most of the right side of her face was swelling, already purpling into bruises. After everything it was this that made him feel ill.

"I didn't make it," Danny told him, sounding confused. "I didn't get there in time." He was holding Sam's body as if it were the most precious thing in the world but he wouldn't look at her.

Tucker was stunned. "She was in it when it hit?" he verified, seeing the crash again before his eyes suddenly in crystalline detail. He looked again toward wreckage that remained. That wasn't something you survived. Danny floated uncertainly, like he was trying to decide whether what had happened was real or not.

"Danny," Tucker said carefully, "Take Sam to the hospital."

His friend's eyes turned sharply to him, startled. He didn't move. It was like he was frozen, like he hadn't understood what Tucker had said.

"Go!" Tucker yelled. And then Danny understood. He turned and sped off as faster as he could back to the city. To safety.

Tucker reached into his back pack and pulled out a Fenton thermose. He still had a job to do. He activated it toward the huge, twitching body of the ghost, wondering if it were really dying or if something like this could even die. Maybe it would regenerate. Maybe with two heads this time, like a hydra. He didn't really care. He stood and allowed the thermos's beam to drag all eight tons of bug guts directly at him, face first, for once not trying to eat anything.

When it was done he put the thermos back in his back pack and looked around. Danny had flown him there earlier, and there didn't appear to be any immediate way of getting to the top again. But Danny was bound to come back, or perhaps someone else would find him. Or maybe he'd be there forever. The sun was finally just about set, he determined from the appearance of the light above the gorge. He stumbled over to a small boulder and sat down.

-AP-

Danny hardly had enough coherence to come up with a proper story, but he realized it was a testament to how used he was getting to a life of secrets that even as he flew break-neck speed toward the hospital, his mind automatically pulled some explanatory details together. He had wanted to take Sam and Tucker out for a ride on the specter speeder. They'd been chased by the centipede ghost. The crash had been an accident. He and Tucker had got out okay, but Sam was… Sam was…

Hurt. She wasn't dead, which was a relief considering she didn't _look _very alive. She was warm, and she was breathing, although it seemed a little shallow to him. Flying so fast made it necessary to hold onto her tighter than he thought he should be, and he wondered if he shouldn't have put her somewhere and not moved her, or something. He unwillingly looked down.

The parts of her that weren't injured were very pale, and the wound on her head was extremely bloody. Besides this she might have been asleep. He wished she would wake up, because she would probably think it was really fun and exciting to be flying this fast. If he wasn't so completely bent on his destination, he also might have thought it was fun and exciting. Despite how incredibly exhausted he was, he had never flown faster. Not even when he'd tried to save Sam. Obviously then he had not been fast enough.

-AP-

"I'm sorry," he said later, to her parents. "I'm so sorry."

The Mansons put a lot of stock in remaining composed and respectable at all times, but now it seemed like they might reach their breaking point at any moment. Their neat, bright clothing stood out sharply under the harsh florescent lights in the dully decorated hospital. Danny's own appearance was even more unkempt than it had been earlier, but now he had an excuse.

"What were you even _doing _at the gorge?" Mrs. Manson demanded. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, although her make-up remained perfect in spite of this, and her voice was quivering. She was clinging to her husband, and both were keeping a safe distance away from Danny, like he might explode at any moment. "It's dangerous, Samantha should have known not to go there!" she cried.

"We… we followed the ghost…" Danny fumbled. His mind and body were both completely exhausted. His own parents were on their way to pick him up, but for now he was stuck. It would have been so much easier just to tell the _truth, _but he couldn't. Sam wouldn't have wanted that, he told himself.

Then, _stop thinking like she's dead!_

"You followed a hundred foot centipede out of the city?" Mr. Manson asked incredulously. His face was bright red from anger, and Danny ignored the exaggeration. "Because I didn't hear anything about something like that. Someone else would have—"

"No," Danny agreed, frantically searching for another explanation. He wished Tucker were here to help him out. _Tucker_, he realized. He'd left his friend back at the gorge, alone. Hopefully he was okay. The thought made him wince. He was not taking very good care of his friends today, and that was the understatement of the century.

"No," he said again. "We followed a different ghost, um… Danny Phantom. The centipede was in the gorge though, and it attacked us."

At his last words Mrs. Manson gave up trying to hold it in and sobbed outright, burying her face in the sweater her husband had tied around his shoulders.

"I'm… I'm sorry," Danny said again. He didn't know what else to say. He needed to get away, but he felt completely trapped. The lights seemed to be getting brighter, the walls closing in on him. It was only when white spots began to appear in his vision that he realized he was not far from passing out himself…

"Sorry isn't going to bring our daughter back," Mr. Manson said coldly. Before Danny could interject again, he snapped, "Don't even tell me, young man. The only reason Samantha was anywhere near those ghosts is because of you! You and your freakish family. It's all your fault!"

Mrs. Manson cried louder.

It is my fault, Danny knew. It was my idea. _It's all my fault._

"I'm sorry!" he said, drawing closer to them in desperation. "I didn't want this to happen. Especially not to—"

The next moment he was flat on his back on the cold floor. He wondered if he had finally just toppled over as he had felt like he might the entire time, but then he realized that Mrs. Manson had actually shoved him away from them. He was unsteady enough that the blow had sent him to the floor. Two nearby hospital personnel ran over as if to restrain her but she shook them off and looked down at Danny unapologetically. "Just leave us alone, freak!" she snarled, "If our daughter survives this somehow, you will NEVER come near her again, understand? Not you, not Tucker, not your family. You will leave us alone, and you will leave our daughter alone!"

…Leave? …Leave Sam?

Danny knew he should wait for his parents, somewhere in the back of his head, but he hardly noticed when he got back on his feet and ran. Neither of the Mansons tried to stop him. They were probably glad to see him go.

It was completely dark when he got back to the gorge, probably cold though he couldn't really tell in his ghost form. He couldn't get certain images out of his head. The doctors pulling Sam from his arms when he couldn't seem to let go, the reproving look they'd given him as if they knew it was his fault. Mrs. Manson's anguished expression when she and Mr. Manson arrived. Her anger lashing him when she told him what he already knew: that Sam wasn't waking up. And Sam. Beautiful Sam, looking pale and beaten on a stretcher. Looking dead on a stretcher.

When he reached the gorge he wondered if he shouldn't just let himself crash into the cliff wall too, like Sam. Like he'd let her.

Then he saw it, right on the cliff wall where the speeder had crashed. Circular. Glowing in the night, emitting a hyper green fog that dissipated quickly upward. He stopped short mid-flight, watching it as if mesmerized. It didn't make sense, for it to be here. Nothing about the afternoon could have led to its creation. It didn't make sense. You couldn't _eat_ between dimensions. _It did not make sense_.

Tucker was shivering, his knees pulled tight to his chest and his head bowed. Staring, Danny landed next to him, wondering what he could say.

"I'm sor—" he began, but Tucker cut him off. He pointed a finger, shaking with cold, to the glowing patch of cliff wall. To the ghost portal that, against all reason, had appeared there. His teeth were chattering.

"I think we have a problem," he said.

-_Present day…-_

There was an awkward silence as Danny's voice trailed off at the end of the story. They were both sitting on the couch by now, having finished cleaning up the mess in the kitchen. Danny had talked on and on, and she hadn't interrupted once. They'd worked together without looking at each other, and then moved to the living room. The couch was still uncomfortably stuffed with weapons, but Samantha supposed it was the sort of thing you got used to. They sat so far from each other they were practically at the opposite ends.

"Thank you for telling me," Samantha said at last. Her throat felt dry, like she'd been the one talking the whole time.

"I should have told you right away," Danny pointed out. He smiled, amused, but it wasn't the cheerful sort of smile Tucker always seemed able to call up. It was bitter. "I should have told you three years ago."

"You should have," Samantha agreed. She stood, and so did Danny.

"You can… you can still stay here," he offered, and then quickly added, "You know, if you want to."

"It's okay," she said coolly, "I'm going to go sleep in my own room. I need to think." This was a lie, of course. She had no intention of returning home where her parents would find her. Still, she wasn't sure she could bear the awkward tension between her and Danny any longer.

She hurried towards the door without even saying goodbye. It felt good to know what had really happened, no matter how incredible the story seemed, but it hadn't exactly cleared up how she felt. If anything she was more confused now. She couldn't help but feel sorry for Danny, the way he had told it. Not that he had said anything that was meant to cater her pity. Rather he'd told it straight, factually, reporting his and Tucker's reactions but not commenting on them like it was all something from a text book. And it was for that very reason that she felt sorry for him. But it didn't mean she also didn't feel sorry for herself.

Before leaving, she couldn't help but ask. _It's not like this could get any more awkward, _she encouraged herself, _Might as well now while he's being honest. _"Danny, before… were we…? You know."

Danny had been eyeing the floor while she made her hasty exit, but now he met her eyes. The question hadn't surprised him. In fact, he didn't seem to have reacted at all.

"No," he said expressionlessly. "We weren't."

"Oh," she replied, because there wasn't really anything else to say. She left, and closed the door quietly behind her. Somehow, leaving Danny inside by himself felt awful, like she was abandoning him. But hadn't _he _abandoned _her _for three years?

"Sam!" It was Tucker. He was floating along just above the sidewalk. Sam descended the porch stairs and stood next to him, at which point she abruptly realized they were roughly the same height. She noticed for the first time (having been previously distracted by the fact that he was a _ghost _more than anything else) that Tucker looked younger than he should have, but that made sense, didn't it? His ghost had been ripped out of his fifteen year old body, and he would be eighteen by now. She recognized that she was distracting herself from more important matters, and greeted him.

"Hey, Tucker."

He looked relieved, and Sam realized that although the air had been somewhat cleared between her and Danny, the last Tucker had seen of her she'd claimed to be a different person and stormed off.

"I'm sorry about earlier," she said. "I wasn't serious. About going back, I mean."

"I know," Tucker grinned. He hadn't, really, and he was extremely relieved to see _Sam _peering at him from under Samantha's choppy bangs.

She thought about asking him about all that Danny had told her. Maybe Tucker could shed some more light on the situation, help her to better understand how she was feeling… And then she realized how very much of the day she had spent running, and how much she had to think about already. Exhaustion set in quite suddenly, and she said, "Look, my parents are back in town. I can't go home. Do you think…" she trailed off as she realized she didn't know whether or not Tucker even had a home in the city any more, let alone if it was somewhere he could take her to stay. Probably anyone would be weirded out if their dead, teenage son brought home a girl asking if she could sleep over…

So she was surprised when he simply said, "Sure, I know just the place." Without warning he scooped her up like he had earlier, and together they flew off.

-AP-

Valerie looked sleepy and surprised when she opened the door and found it was Samantha who had been knocking.

"I'm here too," Tucker whispered, his voice coming from the thin air beside her. "I didn't want to freak out your neighbors."

"Thanks," Valerie replied, rolling her eyes. "What do you guys want?"

"I need somewhere to stay," Samantha asked directly before Tucker could ask for her. Valerie looked even more surprised.

"You mean you're not going back to Miss Priss Prep School, or wherever?"

Samantha smiled at the name which, in her opinion too, was quite accurate. "No," she said simply.

"And can you keep this on the DL from Sam's parents? Oh, and Danny?" Tucker asked hopefully. Valerie frowned. Probably she was not accustomed to keeping secrets from Danny. Still, she sighed and opened the door wider to let the other teens in. Her father had left for work an hour or so before, so the apartment was empty. Samantha, with her best effort, did not stare at the less-than-exquisite décor. She had never been in such a shabby living area in her life, as far as she knew.

"You can have my room, as long as you don't touch anything," Valerie said grudgingly after Tucker had left. She led the way across the main area of the apartment, which was both a kitchen and living room, and to one of the closed doors on the other side. "I'm going out in a few hours anyway."

"Out?" Samantha wondered. She couldn't hide her curiosity as well when inside Valerie's room, which was as small and shabby as the rest of the apartment and crammed almost floor to ceiling in some places with what was obviously very sophisticated ghost technology.

"Patrolling," Valerie replied. "You know."

She was currently dressed in blue cotton boxer shorts and a white tank top with a heart on it, her feet securely tucked in furry pink slippers. Even so, Samantha easily believed it was the same girl she had first met flying around in battle armor. Her expression was defiant, like she was daring Samantha to pick a fight.

But Samantha, who found she was quite exhausted and that her head was spinning as if she had been hit with, say, the side of a cliff, found she was only grateful towards the other girl.

"Thanks, Valerie," she said, "This is really cool of you."

This seemed to catch Valerie off guard. "Whatever," she shrugged. She pulled one of the blankets off of her bed and dragged it along behind her as she went out the door, presumably to sleep on the couch. Before she closed the door behind her she said, as if out of habit, "Good night, Sam."

Samantha, who so far had not quite minded when Tucker or Danny called her by the ugly nickname, found that for some reason this time it didn't bother her when Valerie did it either.

"Good night, Val."

To be continued…

Post A/N: ….OMGZ. So there you it. I'm sure that was all very contrived and nonsensical, but hey. Weird stuff happens to these kids all the time. In this case it just happened to go horribly wrong.

As I mentioned before, there is only one more chapter left to this story. …unless it goes really, really long and I'm forced to split it into two chapters. (Which I should have done with this one—it's 24 pages, sheesh!) However, there is very probably going to be a sequel. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to go through with it or not, because once I get back to school writing is probably going to be sloooow going again and that's frustrating for both you and me. But then I started getting all these ideas and, well, I just really want to do it! So hopefully we have that to look forward to, but in the mean time…

(Super thanks to: Devilchild93, Talia Ali, A, LaRosa, dessyweird51, otakualways, storycrazy22, theLilyLady, YumeTakato, KHFREAK14, Chaos Dragon, Kovva, Kaydreams, and Xweetok!!)

NEXT TIME: Sam confronts her parents, and the kids confront Vlad! …sort of!


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